


Aggiornamento

by NoContractTermination



Series: that a/b/o au where everyone lives happily ever after [3]
Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Beta/Omega, Character Development, Cuddling & Snuggling, Dong Sicheng | WinWin/Moon Taeil - Freeform, Dong Sicheng | WinWin/Nakamoto Yuta - Freeform, Ji Hansol/Nakamoto Yuta - Freeform, M/M, Multiple Relationships, No Plot/Plotless, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Polyamory, Threesome - M/M/M, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-30
Updated: 2017-12-30
Packaged: 2019-02-23 21:29:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 24,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13198914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoContractTermination/pseuds/NoContractTermination
Summary: Aggiornamento: the act of bringing something up to date to meet the current needs.Under the thick blanket of Hansol's departure from the group, Yuta struggles with anger, loneliness, and finding meaning in the little acts of endearment that flank his everyday life. Taeil unintentionally reminds him that he doesn't have to bear it alone.





	Aggiornamento

**Author's Note:**

> \- This is filthy. Completely vanilla, but filthy nonetheless.  
> \- Yuta/Taeil is the main pairing, and the others are mentioned, past, or side pairings. The premise is polyamorous.  
> \- You don't have to read the previous parts for this one to make sense. It's pretty plotless.  
> \- Enjoy!

The only thing that made this possible was that Yuta’s uncle-in-law owned the onsen and let them rent out the entire thing for the few days they were in Osaka filming NCT Life. Taeil was currently sprawled out across the soft featherbed thrown over the tatami in one corner of the room, and Yuta hovered over him, wondering why he’d never noticed how delectable Taeil could look before. 

The truth was, Yuta had known to an extent what Taeil wanted as soon as he appeared in the doorway, holding a fleece blanket awkwardly rolled up around his hands, bare legs peeking out from under pajama shorts. Taeil wasn’t someone who naturally sought out other people. He could lie in his room alone watching videos on his phone for hours, which was why for the trip, his rooming arrangement with Doyoung should’ve worked out perfectly. When Taeil did need something, he usually went to Taeyong. Yuta had a kind of strange relationship with Taeil; it hinged on few but quality moments that were hard to describe with words. They didn’t talk much, and when they did, it was all nonsense, unless— well, the last person Yuta was expecting to show up in the room he shared with Sicheng was Taeil, unless he came here to talk about _that_ , and the _that_ was an emergency. 

So in truth, Yuta was half expecting it when Taeil blurted out, "Yuta, I— I feel weird."

Taeil didn’t seem to mind that Sicheng was lying on his stomach beside an outlet in the corner of the room playing his mobile game. Yuta glanced over for a moment, but Sicheng was absorbed and Taeil seemed to be intent on staring Yuta down until he either A. fixed his problems, or B. at least gave him some insight as to why he was feeling "weird."

"Like what do you mean, 'weird'?" Yuta said, rolling over onto his back and patting the space next to him.

Taeil ambled over awkwardly and sat down all at once, his feet and legs folding underneath him and the blanket coming down to rest clumped up in his lap. "Like," Taeil started, trailing off. He fluffed the blanket for a moment and then looked down at it, rolling it back and forth between his crotch and his crossed legs. "Like… just weird."

"Use your words," Yuta murmured soothingly, and suddenly Taeil kicked him in the shoulder, narrowly missing his face. "Hey! What gives?"

"Don’t talk to me like a kid when we’re having an _adult_ conversation, Yuta," Taeil whined, kicking weakly at Yuta’s face again. At least that cued him in on the topic at hand, though to Taeil, "adult" could mean anything from sex to laundry detergent brands.

Yuta huffed and knocked Taeil’s ankle away with the back of his hand. "Okay, first of all, you gave me no indication that this was going to be one of _those_ talks—"

"Well, now you know," huffed Taeil, exasperated. "I don’t know how I’m supposed to lead into that."

"You’ve done it a million times before," Yuta retorted, though to be fair, half the time they had these unplanned sex talks was when Taeil was either tipsy or vastly sleep-deprived, which felt about the same in this industry.

"Treat me with some respect, and maybe I’ll try harder next time," Taeil snapped, his face smushed in a playful grin.

"I have no idea what you’re talking about," Yuta said, dodging Taeil’s badly aimed kicks and eventually just grabbing his ankles, though holding them still was just as much a struggle.

"I’m older than you, Yuta," Taeil complained, and Yuta mumbled something incomprehensible in response. Taeil acted enough like a kid that sometimes it was an honest mistake. And there was nothing wrong with it; it was charming, and the last thing Yuta wanted to convey was that he was mocking or chastising Taeil in some way. But whatever it was now, something was clearly bothering Taeil that had no place in the imaginary padded playpen they’d built for themselves, and Yuta had to contend with that as a friend, as an adult, rather than the brother who flicked Taeil in the forehead and gave him embarrassing, whooping applause at concerts. 

In truth, Yuta wished they could spend more time together. There was like some obstruction between them because there were so many things Taeil did that were so utterly baffling that at first, he came off a little standoffish. Yuta couldn’t get a read on him, and it wasn’t until recently that he figured out that it was because there was nothing to read. Not that Taeil was completely airheaded or anything, but the decisions that he made were no means to an end. There was something in his brain chemistry that told him to be content with the way events were unfolding. Which was the last kind of person Yuta expected to encounter in this world of blatant, guiltless thievery. 

Yuta was, like so many other idols, a child who couldn’t wait to grow up, like he couldn’t help but anticipate the next step in whatever he’d set out to do, and Taeil almost felt like someone who didn’t have the capacity to butt up against whatever life threw at him. There was no single word to describe Taeil, but part of it was that you had to be okay with not really knowing him or being able to predict what he’d do next, but in accepting that, you inevitably became one step closer.

So Taeil being weirdly touchy about how Yuta was currently grabbing his ankles and trying to tickle his feet at the same time but also coming to Yuta for what was no doubt sex advice was just part of the diaspora that was Moon Taeil. "Okay, _hyung_ ," Yuta drawled, watching Taeil’s toes curl and feeling suddenly overwhelmed with the urge to bite one. Taeil smelled like the artisan soap Yuta’s uncle had been getting from one of his grandpa’s friends since Yuta was a kid. It was another weird perversion of memories from Osaka and the life Yuta was currently living, and it almost felt like he’d wake up in his bed at home to find out it was all a dream and tomorrow was his first day of junior high. 

After a moment though, the soft marshmallowy scent that was distinctly Taeil started kicking in, slightly chalky as if he patted baby powder between his toes. Taeil was on his back now, his abs having given out on him with his feet still half thrown over Yuta’s shoulders from kicking. it was comforting and the slightest bit musky, as if it wasn’t just a scent but an essence all together, seeping straight from Taeil into Yuta’s bones. Taeil's hair was splayed out underneath him, a mess of soft maroon, and his blanket lied forgotten off to the side, where he still had a hand curled up loosely in it but the fluffy fabric was draping off the futon. The scent kept coming, weak and heady and steady to the point where Yuta started sniffing around for it while staring straight at Taeil’s face. 

That didn’t stop him, though, from giving Taeil a quick once-over. He was all smooth edges and soft, cushiony skin. And there was a lot of skin; his pajama shorts fell down to his upper thighs, and Yuta swore he could _feel_ the soft, trembling puffs of air Taeil was letting out that got heavier by the moment.

Yuta’s eyes snapped right back up to Taeil’s face when Taeil cleared his throat. And Yuta was trying everything in his power not to stare or even look at Taeil’s crotch, even as he hovered over him with his fingers spread out over the smooth skin of Taeil’s legs. 

It was awkwardness. It would be awkward as hell if Taeil had a hard on and they both knew and talked around it like some raging fire in the middle of the room they were ignoring. This vanilla baby powder scent was Taeil’s everyday scent, and Yuta had been around him just in passing long enough to recognize it. 

Taeil wasn’t in heat, otherwise he would’ve told them. And besides, Yuta was a beta; he wouldn’t have sensed or smelled anything different anyway, so why was the aura Taeil was radiating right now so… _much_? Maybe it was just all the anticipation and nothing actually having happened yet that made a weak flood of warmth pulse through Yuta’s veins. He cleared his throat, Taeil staring back at him with mirthful, glistening eyes, and said kind of roughly, "What— what feels weird?"

"I—" Taeil started, then cut himself off suddenly. Yuta hung onto the way Taeil’s voice broke off into a whine at the end. He held on for dear fucking life. 

Taeil could feel it too. But instead of dropping his gaze, he stared right back at Yuta. And instead of flushing in dismay or pushing away in disgust, his eyes seemed to light up like he recognized someone in the crowd. Taeil took a deep breath and sat up, extracting his feet from Yuta’s hands and draping his bare legs over Yuta’s lap. Yuta literally had to hold his arms up awkwardly to keep from touching Taeil, because once he started, he didn’t know when or if he could stop. 

The sex talks started not long after Hansol left. And though Yuta and Hansol were mature adults and ended it on decent terms, the day after Hansol physically moved his stuff out was when a flood of bitterness and anger and guilt and general malcontent came spilling out of Yuta in the form of some of the members playing rock-paper-scissors to see who had to approach Yuta about it, and Taeil having the misfortune of bursting in and muttering, "So how’s it with Hansol…?"

And Yuta, being a pro at both compartmentalizing and feeling absolutely devoid of any emotions whatsover, blurted out, "Well, he was a good fuck."

Taeil could run with Yuta’s thoughtless outbursts, though. That was what Taeil was best at; he was just a bit less insensitive about it. And he didn’t do it out of spite or maliciousness— that was just how he communicated. Doyoung would’ve sighed and stormed out. Johnny couldn’t deal with bad feelings, and he would’ve let out one of his awkward, sandy kind of laughs and punched Yuta’s shoulder. Taeyong couldn’t tolerate talking around on pretense when he could see right through Yuta. But somewhere deep down there must’ve been something familiar to Taeil about it, because he perched on the edge of Yuta’s bunk with a tentative smile and said, "Tell me about it?"

What happened was Hansol "caught feelings." Which, although the whole lot of them fucked on the regular, the fucking was supposed to remain completely platonic. Not without intimacy, because that kind of came with the territory of living together and trusting each other enough to share an incredibly sacred part of life. The specific feeling Hansol caught was the entitlement to assume that Yuta belonged to him. It wasn’t in any way abusive or territorial, but things probably would’ve been easier if it had been: for one, it would’ve been easier to let him go. It was also both conventional and completely normal to be attached to one person or even think of marrying them and being with them for the rest of your life. That Ji Hansol’s only fault was that he was completely normal was a tough pill to swallow, because although SM did a lot of things right, you still needed to be a certain type of person to be okay with sharing what would normally have been the most important relationship of your life. 

And that wasn’t even the worst part about it. The worst part was that Yuta had felt himself cracking, too. It wasn’t hard to imagine and long for the kind of life books and movies made seem disgustingly appealing, especially when, lingering in the back of Yuta’s mind like an annoying cough after the rest of the flu went away, was the fear that as a beta, no one would want him the way he wanted them. 

Hansol was intense in a way that only came out when he let it. Hansol was, in a way that not even he understood or was fully aware of, completely under control. If he weren’t, he wouldn’t have made the decision himself to leave before anyone else could make it for him. It came across as him being a calm, collected person who was normal enough to let things get to him but only in a way that was predictable and easy to understand. If you knew him, you could define him, read him like the back of your hand. But that in itself also made him entirely unstoppable.

Hansol loved and wanted in a way you knew was going to implode on itself before it even started. Yuta was the last person to deny something that was standing right in front of him, proud as daylight and blinding as that patch of sunlight just outside a movie theater. But what had him so shaken was that he _did_ — he did deny himself, for Ji Hansol and when it came to matters of love and undivided, unconditional attention. SM was a contract, and Hansol wasn’t. SM was a promise, and Hansol wasn’t. But Hansol was a bond, an emotional obligation that, in the most inexplicable phenomenon known to humankind, overcame distance, logic, and the inevitability of death, time and time again. And, to be fair, Yuta was kind of a romantic at heart. 

In between the seemingly ceaseless promotions, interviews, concerts, practices, Yuta was halfway to deciding if that was the kind of life he wanted for himself when Hansol abruptly made the decision for him. 

Getting the news from the company rather than Hansol himself stung like an unexpected knife wound to the gut; it hit Yuta when he was soft, not really hurting at first until the numbness and shock wore off. Then, it hurt like _hell_. But it wasn’t fatal enough for him not to struggle against it in every way, for his body not to be screaming at him that that’s dangerous, you trick ass bitch. 

This wasn’t the way Hansol normally went about things. He was straightforward and sincere, and he never did anything to intentionally hurt someone. The thing about Hansol was that if he did something unexpected, something was most definitely awry. He was protecting himself, and Yuta just happened to be the one who’d idiotically stepped onto Hansol’s property without asking permission.

Yuta sprinted back from the corporate building to find Hansol packing his things with a surprising efficiency, even after all these years traveling from place to place, getting up at the crack of dawn, and catching redeye flights with him. Hansol usually took his time and just prepared more time in anticipation of that. There Hansol was, kneeling in the middle of a mostly empty room, looking disturbed, as if even he was surprised at how few belongings he’d accumulated here over the years. 

When was the last time Yuta had been in this room? A few days ago? A week ago? Hansol had the only single in the dorm, and Yuta was afraid Hansol would think he was freeloading if he hung around too much, the sex notwithstanding, though that tended to only happen when there were other people having unrestrained sex in the dorm at the same time and Yuta got fed up with it. 

Yuta should never have been afraid. He should’ve checked up on Hansol more often. Though it wouldn’t have changed his mind, the news might’ve come barreling at Yuta less like a detonating truck and more like the mildly accelerating pain you knew was coming anyway. 

Hansol seemed to sense when Yuta appeared in the doorway, out of breath, his hand propping him up pathetically against the door frame. 

Yuta moved his mouth to speak a few times, but nothing came out; not because he was tired, but everything he wanted to say just seemed wrong. Hansol must’ve felt bad seeing him struggle, out of words and out of defenses like this, so he sighed and said quietly, "I know you’re going to ask what the meaning of this is, and it’s exactly what you think."

Hansol always made things so easy. That was what Yuta would miss the most about him, probably. He even made falling in love with him too easy. And when it came time for him to leave, he made saying goodbye to him easier than it should’ve been. He left quietly with few things, and everyone else seemed to have come to some unspoken executive agreement not to dwell on it too much. Of course, this decision had been made without Yuta’s input on the topic otherwise they would’ve had to drag him out of the room bitching and screaming. In the face of promotions, practice, travel, and everyone else keeping a straight face, Yuta felt trapped in a way that was oddly soothing, like he had permission to compartmentalize the emotions that were too buried and complex to come out properly. His body felt frozen, as if it wouldn’t let him emote until it felt safe enough to do so, and how he felt at any given time was arbitrary, like an unpredictable little monster. 

"He was very… dominant," Yuta mused, and Taeil coughed. 

Hansol used to calm that unpredictable little monster. Taeil obviously didn’t have that much experience talking about sex, but Yuta shot him a _really_ kind of look anyway, because what was the kid expecting, some lengthy sonnet about how Yuta so egregiously missed the battering winds of the storms of Hansol?

Taeil was trying, though, and for all his awkward spaciness, there was something comforting about talking to him, like you didn’t need to be worried about how he’d react because you could never tell, anyway. There weren’t any topics that were off-limits to Taeil, because sometimes he took them in completely stoically, and sometimes he was a nervous jumpy wreck who bounced at the slightest provocation. It made talking to him exciting, though, considering Yuta didn’t really _fear_ , not wholly at least, not as intensely as people like Doyoung and Taeyong did. If you looked into things too hard with Taeil, it would just get convoluted and messy. He never meant any harm, and that was easy enough to remember as the underpinning to all their conversations. Yuta seemed to gravitate toward people who didn’t mean you any real harm. 

"Like… how so?" Taeil said quietly after a moment, and Yuta hummed in satisfaction.

"Like he made you feel special," replied Yuta, and this Taeil laughed at. "What?" Yuta snorted back.

"It’s cheesy," said Taeil. "The way you talk about him."

"What am I supposed to say?" Yuta teased, toeing Taeil’s shin. "His cock w—"

"No, no no, it’s fine— I like it," Taeil interrupted, and Yuta breathed a bit and smiled fondly at him. "I like hearing you talk like you— like you love something."

Yuta made an involuntary noise at that, and Taeil carefully avoided it. _I love a lot of things_ Yuta wanted to retort, but Taeil knew that. Taeil had a point, though— Yuta, like anyone who loved and lost and loved again, was volatile. He got into these painfully apathetic moods, and it was hard on everyone. There was a pattern to it, but no one needed to know that.

"Go on," Taeil coaxed gently after a moment.

Yuta sighed. It was weird, talking about Hansol like he was dead. And to Taeil of all people— but of course it would be Taeil. It couldn’t be anyone else. Taeyong or Doyoung would’ve fretted. Jaehyun and Johnny had that sort of suck it up attitude: a positivity that got annoying at times. It was weird talking about Hansol and compartmentalizing the nostalgia so hard that all Yuta felt was a dull sense of warmth and fondness. Taeil didn’t question it; with Taeil, it was okay. It was okay to be unexpected or to not really know how to present. Taeil didn’t come into things with any preconceptions or expectations. "He was confident," said Yuta. "And never overbearing. He met you exactly where you were."

"Do you… like being dominated?" Taeil asked awkwardly. It was such a straightforward way to come on to someone that Yuta had to laugh at the fact that Taeil wasn’t intending that at all; he just wanted to keep the conversation going in his own weird kind of way.

"It’s chill," Yuta said airily, and Taeil stared at him. 

Did Yuta like being dominated? Why give something like that so much thought when he and Hansol could just sort of fall into this rhythm? Maybe it because Hansol was an alpha. Not that that was particularly important to Yuta, but Hansol felt comfortable with things he knew, and it did feel good. Hansol always showered him with praises and soft, loving touches when they were wrapped up in the moment, too, which felt— moreso than the actual dominance— so good. It was like Yuta's existence in that moment gave Hansol something he needed. 

Which, in essence, was the deep-seated pain of being a beta. Or rather Yuta’s deep-seated pain— taking so much pleasure from being needed, and ironically lacking the physical component that so functionally facilitated it. 

Yuta envied people like Sicheng. It wasn’t obvious at first, but Sicheng was one of those people who carved their own path. Sicheng was also a beta, which was why Yuta sort of felt obligated to take him under his wing, but it was obvious from the outset that they were fundamentally different as people. There was a scope of complicated feelings attached to hanging around Sicheng like life support, but at the end of the day it came down to projecting onto Sicheng the stupid, scary insecurities buried down under all that flashy work ethic and perseverance, and then treating Sicheng accordingly: showering him with attention, making sure he knew he was needed and appreciated and loved, and filling the pathetic little void within Yuta himself by acting how someone should've acted toward him all these years.

Sicheng suited being a beta: it would be weird for him to act in extremes on either end of the spectrum. It would be weird for him to bend to the will of biology, especially when his body and dance skills seemed to somehow defy it. Sicheng wasn’t a person who’d be pulled by carnal desires, not like how Yuta was. Not like how Yuta sometimes felt out of control, but there was no biological explanation for it; he wasn’t in heat, and he had no excuses. It was no sign that someone needed him. It was just a failure of his own functioning. There must’ve been something wrong with him.

Taeil was watching him now with wide eyes, maybe scared that he wasn’t doing enough to make Yuta feel better. It was endearing and warmed up a space around his heart that was already filled with a bitter kind of fondness, and Yuta reached over and patted Taeil’s knee reassuringly. "It’s okay," he said despite himself. "I like it. I do like being with people who are confident."

"Me too," Taeil replied bluntly, and Yuta snorted in the back of his throat.

"Feels good, right?" Yuta said, resting his elbows on his knees. "Being all full and shit."

Taeil hummed pleasantly as if they were talking about hot chocolate. Who had Taeil fucked with? Taeyong? "So you feel that, too," Taeil said, and Yuta rolled his eyes abrasively despite himself.

"Just because I’m a beta doesn’t mean I don’t get off," Yuta snapped, and Taeil stared. 

"I know," he said softly, and Yuta glanced warily at him. "It’s okay, I know."

This was stupid. This was all bullshit. Taeil didn’t deserve this, but Yuta was pathetic and sensitive after the whole ordeal with Hansol, and when he got like that, all the deep-seated insecurities he invested so much energy in keeping buried burst out like a caged animal. "Sorry," Yuta muttered after a moment. 

"… Tell me about it?" Taeil repeated, and Yuta smiled. 

They talked about it all the time, and no one had to know. Maybe it was because Taeil felt intimidated by Doyoung or Ten, who had so much more experience than he did, or maybe it was because talking to other omegas was just preaching to the choir at that point, but Taeil always gravitated to Yuta when he had questions about sex, and their conversations always gravitated, almost innocently in a way, to topics regarding sex. Taeil was just so _curious_ that it was hard not to indulge him. Taeil was probably the only person of a different physiological gender that Yuta could talk to about dicks or about waking up feeling horny for no reason or about fingering himself and coming from just that alone. 

"Must be nice, being able to take care of it by yourself," Taeil teased one night when Sicheng still wasn’t back from holidays in China and they were both too buzzed to sleep and kind of tipsy after a halfassed _Chuseok_ celebration with the dorm. 

Yuta groaned into his pillow and Taeil outright giggled; the little bastard was more of a kid than the dreamies sometimes and definitely moreso than Sicheng. "And you can’t?"

"Nooo, touching myself feels like nothing when I’m in heat," Taeil said, flopping onto his stomach and scrolling through his phone in the dark.

Yuta hummed in acknowledgment. Of course it didn’t— sex during heat was entirely for establishing and maintaining familial bonds. It was pointless to fuck yourself. "What about when you’re not in heat?" Yuta said off-handedly, but Taeil’s steady breathing indicated he was already asleep.

What _were_ omegas’ libidos like when they weren’t in heat? A little fragment of a thought toed the edges of Yuta’s mind as Taeil’s light, soothing snoring framed the background. Okay, now Yuta was the one awake and wondering, though it was just a mild, lighthearted curiosity that had been much too long coming. Yuta wondered but didn’t ask questions; questions always had strings attached. Why are you asking? Where were you going with that? 

But Taeil was someone who left you with an airy openness, letting you choose where to go with the unspoken promise that he’d be not far behind, dependably there, like a reassuring breath or a favorite scent.

Yuta sighed and dug out his phone which was charging under a pile of hoodies and clean pillowcases. He used to just ask Hansol for everything. The hazy warmth came back, not often paying a visit these days, maybe feeling replaced by Taeil and Sicheng who were constantly at Yuta’s side.

It was okay, though. Hansol was a safe memory, to the point that Hansol had asked Yuta not to contact him for three months or until he contacted Yuta first, and that was surprisingly okay. It was both nice and sad to have some breathing room, and that was the inevitable tradeoff.

Yuta’s Google search landed him a bunch of porn sites masquerading as academic journals, which seemed to cater to a niche but surprisingly large demographic. Then there were the inevitable hippy new age pseudoscience blogs talking about _functional sex_ and _pleasure sex_ , whatever the hell that meant. Except as he kept scrolling and started tapping into these academic databases SM memberships gave them access rights to that no one ever used, the science wasn’t actually so psuedo after all this time. Apparently the binary functions model had more theoretical backing behind it but not enough formal research. 

Sicheng was the only other beta Yuta knew, and he was frustratingly hard to read and impossible to siphon information from. But betas feeling a different type of sex drive that had the possibility of feeling more or less the same as alphas and omegas made sense and was a theory broad enough to encompass a variety of experiences, including Yuta’s, which was functionally the most important here. 

Heats seemed so intense and all-consuming that having them left more of a bad taste about sex for omegas, like it was a chore. That’s why they called it _functional sex_ maybe, though the endorphin and norepinephrine release still felt nice in the moment. 

Betas, on the other hand, could effectively fuck whenever they wanted. Yuta huffed out of the side of his mouth. 

_Functional sex_ came from the interaction of hormones during an omega’s heat, when any alpha’s pheromones would more or less smell delectable. _Pleasure sex_ , on the other hand, was a response to continually emitted pheromones, but you only reacted to the people your body personally found attractive. Alphas and omegas usually started taking hormones shortly after puberty, and some study in the early 2000s broke down the cocktail of hormones in the drugs, half of which suppressed the neurochemical reaction to pheromones from others, and half of which were to suppress pheromones emitted by the self. The latter half stunted all sexual hormone communication to the brain, so even "normal," out-of-heat sexual attraction was diminished.

The thought of feeling only the "normal," pleasurable side of sex was jarring. Yuta had always been someone vaguely irregular. Maybe pleasure sex was normal, and everyone else was just fucked. 

Functional sex had at some point grown to be so intense that doctors had to dial it down, in essence turning out the light to having sex just for the fun of it, too.

The pieces started clicking together.

Taeil was sitting here right now at the onsen, half-draped over Yuta’s lap, confused about a feeling he couldn’t even describe because he’d never even _felt_ it before, much less tried to describe it. And now he was coming to Yuta for help and answers and all Yuta wanted to do was lean down and kiss him because Taeil was horny, in the completely physiological sense, and because sex was supposed to be fun and pleasurable and intimate, Yuta was starting to get horny, too. Because of pheromones. And drugs. And for some reason, Taeil’s weren’t working quite right, but he wasn’t in heat either. Taeil just wanted him, and whether it was because of Taeil’s pheromones or because Taeil was just a gorgeous, ambrosial human being, and Yuta lived in a household full of them and feeling attracted to one of them wouldn’t be out of the norm for anyone else.

"Can I… kiss you?" Yuta said roughly, and Taeil stared at him, his eyes wide but half-lidded and his mouth hanging open temptingly. His lower lip shone under the overhead light, and it looked perfectly plump and kissable, especially when he tucked it between his teeth for a moment in thought and let it snap back out. 

Taeil had to be doing this on purpose. He had to have noticed the way Yuta couldn’t stop staring and was tense in trying to keep himself from inching toward him subconsciously. After an eternity, Taeil breathed, "Yeah," and Yuta let himself surge forward like he’d been wanting to with Taeil meeting him eagerly halfway, the weight of his arms coming around Yuta’s shoulders clumsily in desperation. 

Of course Yuta went for the lower lip first; it looked too plush not to, and it didn’t disappoint caught between his lips for a moment and then his teeth, lightly at first into a short but sharp nip. Taeil felt like marshmallows but tasted like Taeil, wet and soft and not much like anything. He tasted peaceful and welcoming.

Taeil shifted so that he was half sitting on Yuta’s thigh, clinging to his neck to get at Yuta’s upper lip in choppy, desperate nips that just made Yuta press forward and kiss Taeil harder. Taeil let out an unapologetic moan in response, loud and echoing through the air between their teeth and bouncing off the walls. Even the vibrations felt good, and the lilt of Taeil’s voice seemed to resonate right at a frequency that should’ve been whiney but instead was just incredibly alluring accompanied by how frantic Taeil sounded. 

"Please," Taeil gasped between kisses, and Yuta hummed and turned and ran his hands up Taeil’s bare thighs, making him let out a squeak and grab onto the back of Yuta’s shirt.

It was wonderful. It felt amazing _having_ Taeil like this. Taeil’s thighs were smooth to the touch; he spent hours shaving them— probably just liked the way they felt sliding against each other— but right now, Yuta wanted nothing more than to hold them together and slide his dick between them and feel Taeil shake under his hands.

Taeil was letting out these pretty little gasps every time Yuta’s thumbs dug into his thighs and traced up under his shorts, and Yuta swallowed them all, kissing Taeil sloppily and mouthing at the corner of his lips and breathing, satisfied, into Taeil’s mouth every time he moaned out loud. "Yuta," Taeil said with a bit of effort, though he made no motion to pull away.

" _Hyung_ ," Yuta replied noncommittally, and he could feel the smile in Taeil’s voice and in the way his cheeks brushed up against Yuta’s face. Yuta nosed them in response and rubbed up and down Taeil’s thighs. 

"Yuta—" Taeil repeated, this time pulling his arms back just slightly so his hands framed Yuta’s face. "Sicheng," he said quietly, and Yuta’s brow furrowed.

" _Hyung_ , really?" Yuta said, pressing their foreheads together with heavy breaths. "I’m here, and you—"

"No, _Sicheng_ ," Taeil added with a grin that felt a little exasperated but mostly amused. "Sicheng. Is. There."

Ah. 

Fuck.

Sicheng was most definitely still there. In fact, he was right in Taeil’s line of vision. 

There was something to be said about how Taeil still wanted to kiss him despite having known Sicheng was there the whole time. Yuta licked his lips subconsciously and turned to where Sicheng was, still lying on his stomach but with his head propped in his hands and looking on curiously. His eyes were wide, but he seemed neither confused nor alarmed; this was actually probably the calmest Sicheng had been since leaving Seoul, as if Yuta holding Taeil by the ass on his lap and thoroughly enjoying sucking face was an everyday occurrence. 

"S-sorry," Yuta said brusquely. Along with Dong Sicheng always came a flurry of complicated emotions that were way easier to compartmentalize than deal with. Sicheng was a walking contradiction and no one else seemed to notice it. Sicheng was the younger brother to which everything came so easily you invariably hated him but couldn’t help but adore him at the same time. At the core of it all, though, Sicheng worked just as hard as everyone else but was a master at making it look like he wasn’t doing anything at all. 

"No, you can… go on," Sicheng said with about as much clumsiness as he always had. No less, but no more. "If you want," he added as an afterthought, looking down and tracing the patterns on the floor. When he glanced back up and noticed that Taeil and Yuta were both still staring with wide eyes, he mumbled, "I… uh…" then, after a pause came an eventual, "…sorry."

Taeil was the first to speak. He always was, at the most unexpected times. This time, Yuta appreciated it. What could you say to something like that? Not that Taeil and Yuta hooking up was something Sicheng wasn’t supposed to see or know of, but adding him to the picture when neither Yuta nor Taeil really knew what they were doing was just another level of unnecessary accountability. It made Yuta nervous, was what it was. "You really don’t mind?" said Taeil on the other hand, his voice sounding effectively normal, as if he were asking Sicheng to drop by the convenience store later that day.

This made Sicheng look up. His eyes were sparkling a little. Sicheng and Taeil seemed to have this connection that lived on a higher plane of existence, like they were two animals belonging to different species but somehow understood each other better than a human ever could. Taeil knew how to communicate to Sicheng in a way that conveyed absolute harmlessness. Sicheng, who hid everything under that apathetic, confused sort of exterior, melted for Taeil.

Yuta _knew_ he was overbearing and that it made Sicheng wary of him at times and completely sick of him at other times. The thing was, Yuta wasn’t going to do anything about it. To hell if the rest of them thought he’d change what he felt like doing just because Sicheng was a little awkward at expressing himself. "I want to push you away but I know I shouldn’t," Sicheng had admitted to Yuta before, a few months back when they first started rooming together.

"What’s that supposed to mean?" Yuta replied sort of casually; he hadn’t known at the time that Sicheng was trying to get through to him.

After a moment, Sicheng said carefully, "Nevermind."

Yuta’s head snapped up then; Sicheng and everyone in the group knew that _nevermind_ pissed Yuta right the hell off; it had something to do with growing up a younger brother and never being taken seriously only to plant himself in a completely foreign country where all he wanted so desperately was to understand and no one seemed to have the patience to want to help him. 

Sicheng was different, of course: Sicheng was younger and was also a foreigner, but Yuta throwing his guard up then momentarily had been more of a kneejerk response. 

Sicheng had a lot on his mind and was incredibly intelligent and sometimes led into saying things without planning out where he was going with it. In a place where he was just starting to become familiar with the language and customs, it was a little flattering that he felt comfortable enough, at least off camera, not to have to plan every sentence out in his head before he started it. Still, nothing upset Sicheng more than expressing something in a way he hadn’t meant to, so the _nevermind_ s came more as a way to find his own footing than to condescend to anyone else. 

"You’ll tell me later, though?" Yuta said, eyeing Sicheng hopefully, and Sicheng nodded, still puzzling it over in his mind. 

It felt like an unintentional lie. Something in Sicheng’s _nevermind_ felt like it was more than just not knowing the words for it; it felt like something Yuta would just have to come to understand. 

And that was okay. Yuta could do that— if there was anything he was good at, it was fumbling through life, figuring shit out by himself, tripping over things and stepping on others until he somehow came out the other end having gotten it one way or another.

This time, the task was for Yuta to understand that Sicheng was scared. 

Sicheng was many things: he was strong and smart and clever and playful, and he was scared. He was scared of commitment and he knew this and in effect was also scared of spiraling into a pit of self-imposed isolation. It was Yuta’s job to keep him from toppling over the edge, even if he had to drag Sicheng out kicking and screaming. Sicheng’s personality never invited much deep, engaging conversation, and the language barrier just made that all the more apparent. Being in the constant presence of people like Johnny, Taeyong, and Doyoung highlighted the image Sicheng had unintentionally crafted as a cold soul absorbed in a world of abstractions when in reality he wanted to belong just as much as anyone else, just in a way that required an unspoken sort of trust in that Sicheng really did care even if he didn’t express it much, and that things would be okay.

And Taeil— Taeil had that. Taeil was just the kind of strange soul that fell right in line with what Sicheng needed, and it was like a miracle that the world had so much grace as to bring these two together in the most profound way, right here in this room in Yuta’s uncle’s onsen with Taeil sprawled across Yuta’s lap and Sicheng mulling over why he didn’t find it unbearable watching Yuta and Taeil make out.

Sicheng shook his head. He didn’t mind. "It’s… fascinating to watch?" he said, which made Yuta’s dick noticeably droop. Taeil snorted into his hand at that, the skin of his thigh wedged in between Yuta’s legs where he could no doubt feel it.

" _Fascinating_ ," Yuta balked, and Sicheng sat back on his heels defensively.

"Can’t you just— just ignore me?" said Sicheng.

Yuta turned to Taeil with an exaggerated roll of his eyes. He didn’t have an exhibitionist kink. Not with Sicheng, at least. 

Any ounce of attraction to Sicheng that wasn’t wrapped up in the mess of inhibited wariness was basically the same as how you’d adore a small animal; otherwise Yuta wouldn’t have been so overt about his affections. But Sicheng couldn’t leave the premises, and if he were in some other room, it would still be hard to think about fucking since Sicheng was basically there, just with a few walls, thin as paper, between them. 

Yuta groaned, and Taeil nudged him lightly on the shoulder. 

He turned toward Sicheng and said, "Come here?" while beckoning Sicheng over with his outstretched arm. Taeil was trying something. And that was both frightening and thrilling, because things were all tangled up in a huge mosh pit of whatever the hell was going on right now plus sex, and also whenever Taeil tried things it usually somehow ended up okay. If Taeil hadn’t tried something, they wouldn’t be here in the first place.

And Sicheng, surprisingly but not overly so, obeyed. 

The way he clambered up onto his gangly limbs and trudged over was not sexy. Crawling would’ve been even more ridiculous. It wasn’t until Sicheng kneeled beside them and Taeil moved to tangle his fingers in Sicheng’s hair— hesitating every few inches as if asking permission, and then murmuring, "Can I kiss you?"— when it finally became sexy. 

Sicheng nodded and closed his eyes, surprisingly calm. He definitely had prior experience with this, judging by how decided he was in letting Taeil lead him carefully and calmly. 

And their lips meeting was really a pleasure to look at; it was, objectively, art in its highest form. Yuta’s skin burned as he watched Taeil curl his whole body into the motion of fitting his lips between Sicheng’s. Taeil pushed Sicheng’s hair back and moved in such an effortlessly alluring way; the soft curves of his body definitely had something to do with it, but his single-track mind, or how he concentrated his entire effort on whatever he was doing in that moment framed his motions with hundreds of little subtleties. He was intentional, careful, nervous, excited, and dazed all at once, and Sicheng absorbed it all: his plush lips molded around Taeil’s sure but gentle as his hands moved deftly toward Taeil’s waist. 

Yuta, who was still holding Taeil, tightened his grip around Taeil’s hips. Possessiveness, entitlement, and jealousy were all so taboo in the dorms, and it was ironic that Yuta and Sicheng, two betas that couldn’t be more different, were confronting it like this.

And, at the same time, it was only fitting. When Sicheng absently tried to pry Yuta’s fingers away and found that Yuta wouldn’t budge, he snorted against Taeil’s lips. In some ways, Yuta and Sicheng were similar; they just hid it under vastly different acts. Yuta laughed breathlessly, pulled Taeil back onto his leg, and murmured, "Mine," into the crook of Taeil's neck, to which Sicheng shrugged and leaned forward to keep nibbling on Taeil’s lip. It was all soft fun and silly games, lapping slowly at Taeil’s neck until Taeil let out a soft moan that he’d obviously been holding in.

Taeil’s voice was the backbone of the group, but like this, soft and raw and just for him, it was almost unfair. "You like that?" Yuta croaked out; Yuta _had_ his own brand of sexy, but Taeil here seemed keen on pulling the rug right out from under him and pulverizing everything he knew about taking control of the situation. 

It slowed things down; it gave him time to enjoy Taeil’s challenging, bright little stare as he gazed at Yuta and said, "Yeah, I do like that."

Yuta hummed against Taeil’s neck to stall time and draw more of those pretty noises out of him, which was coming along nicely. Taeil squirmed and twisted in his arms, turning his head this way and that to try to give Yuta a good angle, even breaking off a lazy kiss with Sicheng to moan outright, loud and desperate, when Yuta bit down lightly right against his nape.

Yuta was breathing hard now, trying not to rut up against Taeil’s thigh and ass where his dick was pressed unabashedly. When Taeil shifted to straddle Yuta’s hips with his thighs and rolled his hips down against Yuta’s crotch, Yuta couldn’t help it anymore. He jerked his hips up with a broken groan and Taeil hummed and clutched Yuta’s arms and shoulders in a death grip, letting gravity anchor him down so that Yuta’s dick shifted between his ass and crotch, hard under layers of clothing. 

"Fuck," Yuta hissed when Taeil trailed his hands down Yuta’s chest and flicked his nipples between his fingers. "How are you so good at this?"

Taeil laughed breathlessly. "Oh, come on. It’s not like we just fuck and get it over with," he replied, referring to when he went into heat, which had only happened one other time since the first time with Taeyong, and to Yuta’s knowledge he’d gone to Taeyong again. 

_Taeyong_. He probably treated Taeil well. Taeyong understood, too, the most out of all of them, that they couldn’t get involved past this. That must’ve been why Taeil hadn’t gone to Johnny about it, though Johnny was stronger than Taeil thought, he just tended to wear his heart on his sleeve. And Johnny adored Taeil, which would’ve made things all the more complicated. Taeyong had to have talked to him at some point, and Johnny would likely have conceded. When they all quit this life in their 40s or so, it was easy to imagine Johnny and Taeil ending up together in a quaint little split level house in the suburbs. 

"Okay," Yuta huffed, getting a hold of himself and more or less dumping Taeil onto the futon. Taeil flailed a little, scrambling up and staring at Yuta who loomed over him, his forearms bracketing Taeil’s face and his head a shadow over him. "Show me what you wanna do, then." 

Taeil blinked for a moment then grinned, looping his arms around Yuta’s shoulders and pulling him down for a hard kiss. And Taeil’s lips were nothing short of heavenly, warm and wet and plush, making it way too easy to just sink into and lose yourself in them. Taeil gasped when Yuta latched onto his lower lip again, sucking hard until it swelled up all pretty; he looked Taeil in the eye as he did it, too, grinning devilishly until Taeil finally squeezed his eyes shut and moaned. The weird things Taeil got embarrassed and shy about when he completely lacked shame in other ways made it even more entertaining to push his buttons, trying to figure out what would set him off the same way even the smallest actions from Taeil made Yuta just want to shove him down and kiss him for ages without touching him until he lost it. 

Taeil reacted slow and steady to pretty much everything, and Yuta wanted to take that apart. Taeil wasn’t unreadable on purpose; his system just had a way of freezing up like an animal playing dead, and part of why it was so satisfying to see him like this, spread out and grasping at Yuta greedily anywhere he could reach, was because he was only like this when he felt safe, assured of himself, and in control. Taeil’s eyes literally glinted in the light and his entire demeanor shifted when he was in the moment; he became playful and mumbled out meaningless one-liners like, "Get the lube."

"Mmm?" Yuta hummed, and Taeil laughed lightly against his lips, rolling his hips forward against Yuta’s and letting out a soft, fluttery sigh which was up there on the list of most beautiful things Yuta has ever heard. 

"Lube, Yuta," Taeil murmured, looking at Yuta with a lazy, lidded gaze. "Get it."

Yuta blinked, fumbling for a bit because that was farther than he’d anticipated it going with Taeil, but he wasn’t complaining at all. Taeil had come here for answers, and Yuta made it a point to always exceed expectations. 

That was when Sicheng appeared wordlessly again, like he was somehow flickering in and out of their awareness. _How_ Sicheng knew where Yuta packed the lube was a question that wouldn’t get answered tonight, but Yuta made a mental note of it. 

Sicheng’s hands were warm when their fingers touched, and for some reason it was hard to meet his gaze. It felt like being caught stealing your mother’s purse, even though Sicheng was younger. 

What the hell was Yuta so afraid of? Some snarky, condescending _I told you so_ sort of expression, as if affirming that Yuta would always be a product of his own pathetic, needy ass, or maybe solemn acceptance that this was who Yuta was, in all his weird, thirsty existence, and the distance between them was something Sicheng would never come to understand?

But Sicheng’s hands were warm— more than warm, they were hot. His palms felt like fire. And Yuta looked up despite himself, and Sicheng looked back at him with something deep and intense, fiery hot but contained within a bubble of the warm brown that formed his irises. His brow was dark and heavy, and he looked beautiful like this. They locked gazes for a moment before Sicheng broke away, reaching down to pet Taeil’s hair absently. He wasn’t ending it or running away, just postponing. Tonight would be about Taeil. Tomorrow they could explore this more, or the next day, or the day after that. 

The look Sicheng gave Taeil was not totally different, it just had a bit more tenderness behind it. It was intense and playful and curious all at once, yet it had something more like _love_ and an openness that Sicheng never quite gave anyone else, not even Yuta. And, oddly, that was okay. Yuta saw it in Taeil, too. Not that Yuta was closed off by any means, but there were, deep down, some bitter insecurities that probably everyone knew of but Yuta would never admit to. The fact that Yuta so stubbornly chose to hide rather than ask for what he needed was the ravine that separated him from Sicheng— it wasn’t anything that had to do with sex or what Yuta had always found so disgusting about himself. 

Taeil, like Sicheng, struggled to bare anything, much less the things he wanted to communicate. There was a warmth to their hearts that lied buried under something incomprehensible and so many layers of burdensome human flesh. And in empathizing with that, Sicheng and Taeil had somehow unlocked pathways to each other without words or expressions but just by feeling it in your heart, and knowing it like a memory or an old friend. 

"What do you want, _hyung_?" Sicheng said quietly, running his hands through Taeil’s hair. Taeil needed Yuta right now, and Sicheng wanted to see Taeil getting what he needed. Sicheng would never admit or even be able to put into words taking pleasure from that. That was okay; Sicheng didn’t need to. Not with just anyone, anyway. Leave it to Taeil to be the one to draw everything wordlessly from Sicheng. 

Taeil hummed, pleased. "I want Yuta to finger me," he said lowly, and Yuta, who was sitting back on his heels, groaned in approval and ran his hands up the backs of Taeil’s thighs, pressing them forward against his chest. 

"I can leave," Sicheng said, motioning to stand up. "Do you want me to leave?"

"Stay," said Taeil quickly, while Yuta’s hand darted out to touch Sicheng’s knee.

Sicheng turned toward Yuta with a surprised expression, as if he’d forgotten Yuta was there. "… If you want," Yuta added. The apprehension was understandable. There were layers to the things Sicheng couldn’t or didn’t want to reveal about himself, and understanding him was a matter of eliciting from him and exploring all the floors and pressing into the things that part of him felt like someone else should know and part of him felt like he’d keep to himself forever. And in this big messy dorm of a bunch of boys who were in some ways so mature and in other ways so stunted in their growth, they really only had each other to pick up the pieces. 

"Thanks," Sicheng said staring at Yuta kind of dazedly, as if he were still in shock that after all this time, Yuta finally _finally_ got it. At least enough to give him space to make his own decisions but at the same time not writing him off as some senseless and immaculate version of Yuta himself. Sicheng never wanted to be that. 

Taeil had unlocked a part of Sicheng that felt like it would fizzle away, and Yuta— Yuta loved Sicheng. Sicheng needed Taeil, and in a way, Yuta wanted to see, too, what Taeil could do for Sicheng. Sicheng was himself. And in that, they weren’t so different after all. 

Taeil caught Sicheng’s lips and kissed him softly. "Do you like that?" Taeil mumbled, his eyes bright and curious again. 

Sicheng blinked his eyes open and shrugged. "It’s chill," he replied, and Taeil laughed, shoving his shoulder while Yuta let out a playful growl, running his hands up and down the backs of Taeil’s thighs and kissing him hard just after. "What, it _looks_ good," Sicheng added defensively, and Taeil pushed Yuta off with a breathy laugh.

"That’s good enough," Yuta said for him, tugging Taeil’s shorts and briefs down hastily, balling them up and chucking them in the corner of the room, and letting his hands come to rest on Taeil’s smooth legs.

Taeil spread his legs and beckoned Yuta down between them for a kiss. "I know you like them," Taeil murmured against Yuta’s lips, and Yuta hummed in approval and pinched the skin of Taeil’s inner thigh, drawing a cute gasp out of him. "But it’s kinda your fault that I want your fingers in my ass, so make it up to me by getting your fingers in my ass," Taeil said, staring up at Yuta from under his brow, his jaw set and his lower lip jutting forward in a little pout. 

Taeil was really impatient when he started babbling things that actually made sense, except— "How is it my fault?" Yuta shot back with a grin, coating his fingers generously in lube. Taeil was a little wet already— feeling his slick drip down the back of his ass almost tenderly while Yuta had been groping him before was incredibly hot— but the last thing Yuta wanted to do was hurt Taeil or make this unpleasant. "You’re the one who came to my room all horny," Yuta continued, lifting Taeil’s leg and pressing soft kisses into the back of his knee.

Taeil jerked as Yuta trailed his rim with his finger and watched Taeil’s expression for cues. Heat blossomed from the tips of Taeil’s ears down to his face, making him glow pretty and pink under the lights as he curled his toes against Yuta’s back and stared at him, nostrils flaring with his labored breaths. "I didn’t _know_ I was horny," he retorted, his voice trailing off into a whine as Yuta pushed his index finger in slowly, marveling as Taeil sucked him in easily and warmed up around him. "More, more," Taeil gasped, and Yuta moaned in response, pumping his finger in and out of Taeil a little harder because _Jesus_ he needed a moment; Taeil was so effortlessly sensual like this it made it almost hard to look at him in a different context. How the fuck did Taeyong do it, automated compartmentalization? Selective memory? Everything just felt so real right now, so intense, like the feeling of having Taeil wrapped around him was burned into a space under Yuta’s skin, coursing between his veins, and seeping into every inch of him. He only had one finger inside Taeil but the way Taeil quivered under him and quite literally had his legs wrapped around him and dripped slick as he started rocking back against Yuta made his head cloud up with arousal, thick and heady. 

Yuta groaned and pulled his finger out of Taeil to kick his own boxers off, and when Taeil made a dissatisfied little noise and reached down absently to touch himself, Yuta caught his wrist and breathed out, "Don’t."

Taeil arched his back petulantly and stared at Yuta through lidded eyes that somehow still spit fire and mirth. He obeyed, though, on his own terms. "Tease," Taeil muttered, biting his lower lip as he watched Yuta’s dick bob out from under the elastic of his boxers, already painfully hard. The way Taeil’s gaze honed straight in on it made Yuta moan in satisfaction and rut up dry against Taeil’s thigh.

"Wanna make you come untouched," Yuta murmured, looming back over Taeil and stretching him with two fingers this time, twisting his wrist with the absolutely obscene sound of a mix of slick and lube _squelching_ in and out of Taeil. 

" _Ah_ , god, Yuta," Taeil gasped out, digging his heel into Yuta’s back to pull him in. Taeil’s skin stretched taut over his muscles as he thrashed and twisted underneath Yuta, yet he still looked so soft in the light, the pulse of his voice blanketing everything in a foggy, heady heat that felt almost unreal and pressed in from every direction. Taeil moaned loud and unabashed when he felt Yuta’s two fingers finally bottom out, and Yuta wasted no time in pulling out and pressing back in, tracing and stroking Taeil’s walls, scissoring his fingers slowly, twisting them in small _o_ ’s until Taeil was holding back choked off screams, clenching the sheets with one hand and the other thrown over his mouth.

" _Hyung_ ," Sicheng said quietly just as Yuta slipped a third finger in, thrusting shallowly. 

Taeil could only whimper in response, clenching around Yuta’s fingers like he was trying again to pull Yuta in deeper. And fuck if Yuta didn’t want that too, but the need to see Taeil come slowly, steadily apart in pleasure after already holding out this long overrode that, and Yuta concentrated on stroking, almost petting Taeil’s walls soothingly as Taeil let out these small noises and tried rolling his hips down to meet Yuta’s hand. 

Sicheng laced his fingers, dry and warm, with the hand Taeil had against his mouth and pulled it away to reveal a series of reddened, angry bite marks. " _Hyung_ , please be loud," Sicheng said carefully, stroking over the marks with his thumb.

Taeil nodded, a little mesmerized by how intensely Sicheng was staring at him coupled with the gentle way he nursed the back of Taeil’s hand and traced his knuckles. Yuta dropped his head against Taeil’s shoulder and panted against Taeil’s neck as his dick rubbed up against the inside of Taeil’s thigh. "Sicheng likes your pretty little noises," Yuta groaned out, and Taeil hummed, turning his head so that he could press a small, teasing little kiss behind Yuta’s ear. 

Four fingers deep and Yuta could feel Taeil’s walls squeezing him in from every direction, the pads of his fingers when he twisted them just so pressed up against that sensitive spot deep in Taeil that had him crying out. More slick seeped slowly out of him and soaked Yuta’s knuckles while beads of precome dripped down his cock. When Taeil’s face wasn’t scrunched in pleasure, he still made it a point to blink his eyes half open and stare up at Yuta while breaths left his mouth in fluttery little moans and his ass squeezed Yuta’s fingers and pulled them deeper. Fuck, if Taeil was going to come untouched then Yuta might just go ahead as well with how Taeil was looking and sounding like that, fucked out and his pretty cock twitching whenever Yuta pressed in just the slightest bit deeper or stretched all his fingers out against Taeil’s rim. 

Yuta buried his face in Taeil’s neck and breathed in shakily. Taeil was going to send him over the edge. He was gonna fucking come just from fingering Taeil. The scent lingering from Taeil’s nape just felt distinctly like Taeil, shampoo and his sweat, which smelled thin, faint, a little musky and a tiny bit sweet.

Taeil could tell, if not from the way Yuta’s thrusts were getting less controlled, more desperate, then from how Yuta was panting harshly in Taeil’s ear and throwing out the occasional, "Fuck, Taeil _hyung_ ," that Yuta was in just as bad a state as Taeil was. And Taeil, in all his current delirium, still trailed shaky little kisses up Yuta’s jaw and cheek. Probably to distract Yuta from the way Taeil's hand was sneaking between their bodies, but at this point Yuta couldn’t bring himself to care; he was so fucking close. 

The groan that ripped out of Yuta when Taeil’s hand wrapped around his dick was nothing short of feral. Taeil swallowed it with a satisfied moan of his own, letting go of Yuta for a moment to take them _both_ in his hand and start stroking, twisting his wrist, practiced, and eating up the desperate, choked off noises he was drawing out of Yuta.

"Fuck, that’s good," Yuta breathed out, and Taeil hummed, gasping when Yuta thrust his fingers all the way inside in one smooth movement, pulling out almost all the way before fucking back into Taeil again. The deep, long motions coupled with the quick, almost efficient way Taeil squeezed and cupped and stroked their dicks in tandem was too good. 

"I— I’m close, I’m close," Taeil panted, arching his back with an aborted scream as Yuta responded by stroking the skin against Taeil’s prostate mercilessly while the rest of his fingers pushed out against Taeil’s walls just how he liked it. "Oh god, Yuta, _mmhn_ ," he whined out, and he came with a sharp gasp and a high scream that cracked in and out of silence as his body pulled taut and then curled in on itself and his thighs pressed inward, squeezing Yuta’s arms and shoulders. Come spurted out of his dick and covered his fingers and his belly and slick dribbled all over Yuta’s fingers while he fucked Taeil steadily through it as well as he could with how close he was to coming, too. 

Taeil was still stroking, squeezing Yuta’s dick as he kept coming, hard, his breathy little _ah_ s and whimpers bracketing it all. Yuta couldn’t tear his eyes away from the strings of come that decorated Taeil’s skin or the clear, warm slick seeping into the sheets underneath him, and with a good few bucks of his own hips, fucking into Taeil’s grip, he came too with a loud moan, shaky in its intensity. 

Taeil dropped his own dick and concentrated on stroking Yuta through it slow and gentle while Yuta still had his fingers buried deep in Taeil and his nose pressed against the soft part of Taeil’s neck right under his jaw. Yuta huffed out deep, shaky breaths as Taeil milked the last bits of come from him, moaning softly at the sight of it alone.

It took a few minutes for their breathing to slow down, though it wasn’t unpleasant being buried in the sticky scent of Taeil’s sweat. There was something else in there too that felt like a scent but wasn’t; it was calming and steady and made Yuta feel hazy and sated, and it took everything he had not to simply collapse onto Taeil. 

After a moment, Yuta heaved himself up to stare down at a smattering of dark bruises across Taeil’s chest and neck. Alphas weren’t allowed to risk leaving marks. Even if no one had known before this, it was too easy to tell that either Yuta or Sicheng had fucked Taeil, but for some reason, Yuta wasn’t mad. At himself, or anyone. Let them see. Worse things have happened. 

Taeil groaned and craned his neck around to an empty room around them, and the toneless sound of the shower hit them both at the same time. "You wanna go after Sicheng?" Yuta said brusquely, and Taeil wiggled a little, sniffling.

"I can’t move my legs," he announced, and Yuta laughed, massaging the insides of Taeil’s thighs soothingly. 

"You’ll have to get up early tomorrow if you don’t shower tonight," Yuta sang, and it was back to Taeil kicking at him, albeit much weaker than before and without much conviction. Taeil’s eyelids were already drooping, though, and Yuta felt a sudden urge to stroke Taeil’s face; so he did, running his thumb across the top of Taeil’s cheek tenderly. Taeil closed his eyes and leaned into it, and Yuta lied down next to Taeil. He probably wouldn’t get up again until morning. 

—

"Can we talk?" Yuta said quietly, staring up at the ceiling. It was oddly lonesome in the mellow silence of the suburban surroundings. The quiet felt loud and distancing, like being jolted back to a place you’d made peace with long ago. It wasn’t that the onsen wasn’t home; it was just a different kind of home. It was more than just the land and the country and the culture that had all been a part of him since before he could remember. Those, just as much as Taeyong and Sicheng, Taeil and the others, made Osaka as much a memory as it was a space that was constantly changing but still at its core never any less home no matter how many new foreign people or flights or concerts or filming sequences you threw at it. 

They’d probably drifted off for about an hour or two. Taeil was now curled up against the wall, and he sat up slightly in response and glanced at Sicheng sleeping on a mat near their feet. "Yeah, we can talk," he replied. "As long as we don’t wake up Sicheng."

Yuta waved it off. "It’s been a long day for him. He’s tired."

"Is he… okay?" Taeil murmured, sitting up and bringing his knees to his chest and wrapping his arms around them. It was warm that night, and Taeil in the past few minutes had kept shifting between throwing the thick quilt off and pulling it back around him a few minutes later. That was how Yuta knew he was still awake. "Did he… get off?"

Yuta turned toward Taeil and traced the outline of his figure with his gaze. Taeil was really quite ordinary, if not a little small, and also wondrously profound in certain lights. The dynamic between the lot of them, all managing and giving up so much for each other was really something that could only have come about because they were who they were. "Having sex isn’t all about having an orgasm, you know," Yuta said a little more impatiently than he intended, and Taeil turned to him with a frown.

"No, I don’t know," he replied in a low, flat voice. "For me, it kind of is."

Yuta sighed and backed off apologetically. "You’re right," he said. There was no reason for Taeil to have more sex than absolutely necessary if there was always some goal, some performance evaluation at the end of it. It must’ve been tiring. Taeil seemed okay now, though, which made a swell of tenderness and pride bloom in Yuta’s chest. Yeah, so Yuta was pretty good at sex. "It doesn’t have to be, though," Yuta added, and Taeil hummed in acknowledgment, a little gentler now. 

Yuta honestly didn’t know what he wanted to talk about. The things swirling around in his head felt better off being ignored, even though that pretty consistently never ended well. So it was a compromise to chat around it and maybe find a way to organize whatever the messy hell of emotions and intrusions that were clogging his mind like a drain pipe. Plus, the sound of Taeil’s voice was soothing, and going from hearing it so intimately to not hearing it at all felt jarring; it was something that needed to be weaned off slowly, like an addictive drug. 

After a few moments, Taeil sighed contentedly and said, "I’ve actually… felt like that a few times before, a long time ago."

"What, horny?" Yuta replied, and Taeil nodded.

"We asked the andrologist, and he said it was actually pretty common," Taeil said quietly. 

"Having a higher sex drive?" said Yuta. 

"Yeah," replied Taeil. "Enough to feel sexual arousal outside of heats. Without the influence of pheromones." 

"I mean," Yuta said with a shrug, gesturing at himself, and Taeil laughed lightly and shoved his shoulder. "Hey," added Yuta. "I know it’s normal for betas, but it’s like the difference between me and Sicheng. I feel like I wanna fuck around all the time, and Sicheng like never wants to fuck."

Taeil sighed and rocked back and forth on his tailbone. "I guess that’s true," he said. "But the doctor mentioned the arousal might be disruptive, since we already have to deal with heats, so. I’ve been on medication since I was a teenager."

Yuta nodded. It made sense. If sex was a chore, then feeling aroused outside of the scheduled time for arousal would be a literal pain in the ass. "Then what happened today, I wonder," Yuta mused, and Taeil pulled the blankets over his knees and up to his chin.

"I went in for a checkup recently," Taeil started, mumbling into the quilt. "The dorm nurse recommended it after I— after Taeyong and I fucked." Taeil rested his chin on his knees, playing with a loose seam in the quilt for a little bit while Yuta watched him and focused on the way his small fingers curled in the fabric. After a moment, he continued. "The doctor said I could probably wean off the meds after having sex, as long as the heats came regularly and we kept it up." 

Yuta snorted and grinned. "Taeyong’s that good, huh?" he said teasingly, and Taeil’s leg shot out and kicked Yuta in the knee. 

"But it might take a while for my body to adjust, he said," Taeil added. "So I think this is what happened. It’s just been so long, and I didn’t know what to do when there were other people around. And I haven’t told you guys because I didn’t think it would come up—"

"Wait, slow down," Yuta said, reaching over to put a hand on Taeil’’s leg, and Taeil made a pathetic noise. Yuta interrupted him more to calm him than anything else; what Taeil was saying made perfect sense, and anyone would’ve done the same, and Yuta wasn’t going to reprimand him for not keeping everyone updated on a small change in medication that was entirely his own business. "So this— when you feel horny, it feels different than when you go into heat?" asked Yuta; usually getting Taeil to talk about something else did the trick when he started stumbling over his words from the nerves. 

Taeil nodded slowly. "It’s… it’s better," he said. "Well, for me— I like it better. It’s slower, and it ebbs. If you ignore it, it’ll go away— like you said. But it can also feel good. Better, even," he continued, his voice dropping. "It’s not so intense— like, sometimes the heats are so intense I don’t remember them that well," Taeil explained, shifting his feet under the covers and drawing patterns in the quilt. "There’s also medication for that, but I just deal with it because it’s only occasionally."

"So you like remembering it," Yuta said quietly, and Taeil nodded. 

"Of course," said Taeil, smiling softly. "It’s a pleasant feeling."

Yuta laughed breathily and scooted so that their mats were edge to edge and pulled Taeil toward him in a warm hug. "You like it," Yuta echoed, ruffling Taeil’s hair and kissing the top of his head.

Taeil giggled and flailed a little, twisting in Yuta’s arms to face him. "Yuta, what’s this? Of course I do. Otherwise I wouldn’t have come to you."

The way Taeil said things was just so sincere that every little praise that came out of his soft, pretty mouth made Yuta’s heart skip a beat. "You came to me because we talk about sex on the regular," Yuta mumbled into Taeil’s hair, and Taeil pushed against his chest so he was just far enough to look at Yuta’s face.

"Yes, and I like it," said Taeil firmly, scooting up to plant a kiss on Yuta’s lips. "Now cuddle with me, you jerk."

Yuta hummed and wrapped his arms around Taeil stiffly at first before finally relaxing them when Taeil started breathing steadily against his neck. It was a weird feeling, realizing you weren’t alone. It was a process, but the beginnings of it felt the weirdest: they were full of thousands of possibilities Yuta never let himself consider, and then all of a sudden it was okay, maybe, to just slip one of them through that fence he’d built and scaled and reinforced so toughly over the years. Maybe that was okay, and that little possibility wouldn’t crawl over and immediately die if it slipped through and sat here next to Yuta for a few minutes. Or it wouldn’t inch over and grow exponentially like a parasite until it was taking over Yuta’s mind and occupying his every thought. No, maybe it would just sit and watch the scenery. Maybe it was okay to acknowledge its presence: the presence of other options— other realities— besides the one he was currently living. 

There were two core perceptions vital to being alone: inherent heaviness of heart, and the prospect of greatness, or being alone because you were special. The first one was ubiquitous; it latched on like velcro. The second lasted only as long as the heart deluded itself in the throes of underdeveloped emotional intelligence, which usually improved with maturity and age. It was a jarring experience, going from feeling special to realizing you weren’t, and that all you really had was a lack of support and understanding, and no one to love or love you, and no investment in any real relationship, and replaceability. 

Of course, no one deserved to have that all dropped on them at once. But with the weird way things developed for Yuta, it kind of did all just sort of hit him at once. Leaving Osaka to settle in Seoul, a place that felt like he was there but never really _there_ , like he was existing but between dimensions and couldn’t quite fall into place no matter which position he contorted himself into, felt like breaking off your pitching arm in baseball. He thought he’d get along just fine, but trying to wiggle into a family with people who were supposed to be competition felt so fabricated, and he was the only one who perceived that weird hostility, which made it even worse. Everyone was having fun chasing after their dreams, so why was it so hard for him to even lift his feet off the ground?

It wasn’t until all the other boys, on their own timelines, in their own particular ways, began struggling, too, when things started feeling a little more whole. Yuta may have been alone for a long time, but that experience taught him what it felt like, and taught him what helped and what didn’t, and taught him how to notice the subtle signs people gave, even the other trainees at SM who were masters at piling it under big fluffy featherbeds of hard work and toil and sweat and optimism. 

A simple, "Hey, what’s going on for you?" in private got Taeyong, whereas Hansol eventually just fell into a habit of hanging around in solidarity and silent support. Johnny felt strong with physical, obvious displays of affection, whereas Taeil just wanted to be not necessarily understood but accepted and welcomed and reassured that he’d always be a part of things. 

Maybe they were all just stupidly pure at heart, wanting the best for each other like this. That was what had brought them all together, under the strangest circumstances. They were entertainers, born from some core thirst to make others happy. And in some ways they were selfish, yeah, and made stupid decisions and hurt each other, and nine times out of ten it was a matter of miscommunication and past hurts and kneejerk responses in search of self-preservation. 

In a lot of ways, Yuta didn’t think very highly of himself at all, but he liked to believe that he’d at least want to see Sicheng, and Taeil, and all the others happy and wouldn’t be bitter over whatever things or people brought that for them. 

Yuta had been so stupidly insecure about his own depth of emotion and overbearing nature. It wasn’t until ages later, when the long process of learning that he was loved and he was okay was finally set in motion, Hansol contributing to a huge chunk of that, when Yuta finally developed enough foresight to look past his own ass and realize that not everything was about him at all, and that people like Sicheng who were so intrinsically different from him were hurting, too. For example, it wasn’t hard for Yuta to express the intensity of his love, really, but for Sicheng it probably was. Realistically, there were times in which Yuta had doubted Sicheng’s involvement in the group, how much he’d sacrifice for the rest of them, and there were times, especially in the beginning, when Sicheng’s lack of response to pretty much everything pushed Yuta to his limit, and he’d no doubt made some stupid underhanded remarks implying that Sicheng didn’t care, didn’t love him, and didn’t _feel_ — remarks that must’ve hurt Sicheng more than Yuta ever realized. 

It wasn’t that Yuta hadn’t tried to love Sicheng. Ironically, the pressure that put on Sicheng to reciprocate that just alienated him even further. Sicheng deserved better, and maybe better meant Taeil. But Taeil needed Yuta, too, and that could work. That could work. For as long as they needed to work, they could work. 

—

They woke up again early in the morning, with Sicheng still wrapped up in that deep, restorative sleep he always managed to chase in the minutes before dawn. Yuta drifted into consciousness spooned up against Taeil’s back with his arms wrapped loosely around his waist, rising and falling softly with his breathing. 

Taeil must’ve sensed the change in Yuta’s breath or the way he pulled Taeil just the slightest bit closer, because he hummed softly and shifted for Yuta to hook his chin on Taeil’s shoulder. "Can’t sleep?" Yuta whispered, his voice hoarse.

Taeil nodded. He was playing some sort of 3D runner that changed directions when he tapped and was starting to make Yuta feel a little disoriented. Yuta closed his eyes, pressed his lips against Taeil’s neck, and just rested them there for a moment, savoring the softness of Taeil’s skin when he had his shoulders all scrunched up like that.

"You’ll be tired later," Yuta murmured, noting the soft shiver that ran down Taeil’s spine. 

"I’ll sleep in the van," Taeil replied softly, and a text notification dropped down from the top of his screen, lagging the game and making Taeil mess up and die. Taeil sighed and Yuta snorted, glancing at the text. It was from Taeyong and read _kk Stay warm.._. Taeil turned around to face Yuta and his eyes glinted in the dim morning light from the window. "I texted him last night that I’d be sleeping in your room."

Yuta choked a little, though what was he expecting, really? "You should… talk to him," he said after a moment, pressing his forehead against Taeil’s.

Taeil’s eyelids fluttered shut relaxedly. "I know, and I will," he said softly.

"Good," Yuta replied with a firm nod and blinked his eyes blearily. Even though they saw each other every day, Yuta still marveled at how smooth and glowy Taeil’s skin looked from up close, and how thick and even his eyelashes were and how they fanned across his cheeks like little feathery wings when he closed his eyes. He was so expressive, too; his whole face seemed to shift with the slightest movements, and you could spend days just tracing the swells and pinches on his face with the way they undulated with his breaths and gave under the touch of a finger.

Taeil sniffed and pressed his body forward against Yuta in an affectionate snuggle. "I would’ve before but I didn’t think we were gonna… go that far," Taeil said lowly but not shy, and a little sexy with how assured of himself he sounded.

Yuta grinned with one side of his mouth. "Do you regret it?"

"Not at all," Taeil replied, shaking his head with a smile. "We should… do it again some time."

"Sure," said Yuta feigning apathy, but his heart did a little flip at the suggestion. Two or three years ago he would’ve been appalled at how hinged he was on every word of Taeil’s, but at this point life was too fucking short to shame yourself for your own goddamn needs. Hansol leaving had taught him enough about that in ways that were both direct and underhanded. "Hit me up whenever you’re horny again, _hyung_."

"Hey," Taeil said, placing his hands on Yuta’s chest and splaying his fingers out. "I— I want to help you, too. You can always come to me."

"I think I’d feel way too guilty if I ever did that," Yuta said, scratching the back of his head and looking up at the ceiling. "You have enough on your plate."

"And you have needs," said Taeil. He cupped Yuta’s face in his hands and made him look down so that their gazes met. Taeil was way too alert for it being this early in the morning, but he looked cute like this with his cheekbones all high and his eyes twinkling. "I’d at least like to try, okay?"

Yuta sighed and put his hand over Taeil’s. Where had this kind of intimacy between them been hiding for so long? Part of it— or, most of it was, admittedly, some homegrown, rudimentary anxiety that he’d allowed to fester deep inside him for way too long. He liked to delude himself into thinking he feared for Taeil, but hidden under that was a solid foundation in fearing for himself. Fearing that he’d pull back, flake off, or in some other way hurt Taeil was just floorboards and insulation. Even though Taeil was the most innocuous person ever, Yuta had dredged up the familiar feeing of fearing that _he’d_ get hurt in the process. 

Yuta loved Hansol. Not in the way Hansol had loved him back; no, he'd trained himself out of that kind of love already. It hadn’t been that hard, considering that nothing— not even true love— felt more fulfilling than being loved, worshipped, and respected by everyone. 

Hansol on the other hand tried, for several long years, before learning somewhere along the way that he would never be cut out for _that_ — the nebulous structure of how they fostered relationships in this dorm, physiologically and emotionally. He eventually got out and cut his losses, but what damage had been done could never be taken back. 

It was Hansol’s problem. Hansol was hurting. It would be a lie to say Yuta hadn’t come to believe after a while that it was his own fault— that he was the one who’d hurt Hansol, despite Taeyong and the others reassuring him thousands of times that that wasn’t the case. Blaming himself was part of coping with his own pain, too; Hansol hadn’t hurt him, but Hansol _leaving_ had, and no one would really understand that. It was hard to sympathize with Yuta when he had seven other shoulders to lean on. It was hard to sympathize with Yuta when Hansol had been the bigger person in detaching from someone so important to him before that someone would’ve ended up becoming his entire world. But even though Hansol wasn’t that gravitational center for Yuta, he was still a huge piece of what made up his heart, and not allowing himself to hurt was just asking for the impossible.

Yet that was what Yuta did. He beat it down and fanned it out. He had no right to allow himself that. Everything he touched went to shit. He’d only end up hurting whoever got close to him again. 

And, at the same time, those all became thinly-veiled excuses to protect the Hansol-shaped hole in his own heart while it was still tender and mending. He might only end up hurting Taeil, and it was just as likely that Taeil might end up hurting him, too. 

So he had pulled away at first. He was snappy and impatient. With Taeil, you needed to make an effort, and Yuta hadn’t been up to the task. And yet, be it due to a lost game of rock-paper-scissors or a meaningful twist of fate, Taeil chased after him anyway. 

It was easier to be alone: to trick yourself into thinking isolation was strength and independence. Yuta had fallen into that trap several times over the course of his life, but he never seemed to learn. A hurt heart couldn’t be mended alone, and it didn’t have to be. Building something out of the experience of Hansol’s departure didn’t mean that it wasn’t still one of the hardest things Yuta had ever gone through in his lifetime. Making something out of it didn’t mean it didn’t change the course of everything. Of course it did. It shifted everything off track and changed the orbit of the world for them. But maybe along the way they could find another track, and with some dusting off and rewiring of the control board, that new track could lead in a direction none of them had even imagined. 

—

Yuta found Taeil floating in the indoor bath that night, just his eyes and forehead bobbing above the water with a small towel flat on his head and his fringe plastered to his skin. His eyes crossed while staring at the little air pockets that bubbled up to the surface from his mouth and nose, and soft clouds of steam formed little flame shapes around him like forest spirits. 

Yuta snorted, standing unnoticed at the door with nothing but a towel around his waist. Taeil was such a kid sometimes. It was the dead of night, some ungodly hour that no one should be awake. Yuta didn’t even _want_ to know the exact time, but leave it to Taeil to still be awake; actually, he’d probably fallen asleep at some point a few hours ago and woke back up only to decide that maybe hopping in the bath in the middle of the night would be a grand old idea. And leave it to fate to bring them together again like this not long after they’d done the unthinkable.

For Yuta, it was a case of not being able to sleep after lying on the futon and rolling around for an hour and a half, then dragging the blankets onto the tatami and trying his luck there only to sit up another hour later with a painful crick in his back and airport anxiety. Part of him thought maybe a bath would help and part of him had already accepted the fact that he probably wasn’t getting any sleep tonight. 

The previous night had been fine, though having sex with Taeil probably wore him out. Not that today was lacking in strenuous activity of any sort; between rushing to the train station to puzzling out some maps he hadn’t seen for years to running around shopping for tchotchkes only to bump into a crowd of fans and having to perform the charming, outgoing side of him that had been lying dormant since the beginning of this trip, stress levels were nearing an all time high. Every part of his body felt like lead meatballs, yet whenever he closed his eyes, an uneasy sort of restlessness settled into the pockets of his skin. It felt like being physically unable to relax but being simultaneously too emotionally wound up and too physiologically exhausted to focus on relaxation.

So maybe a bath would help. Or maybe Taeil would be there blowing bubbles underwater for god knows how long now at 3AM subconsciously planning Yuta’s imminent demise but also cultivating a small swell in some faraway of his heart that Taeil and only Taeil had access to and made it flutter at the most unlikely moments.

Yuta cleared his throat, and Taeil blinked his eyes toward Yuta, not looking particularly surprised. He sat up so that his chin rested right on the surface of the water and said softly, "Oh, you’re here, too."

"Came to make sure you weren’t dead," Yuta said, pressing his forearm against the doorframe and leaning on it coolly, which was the opposite of how he felt right now, probably looking like hell with under eye circles deep enough to swim in and his hair sticking in a thousand different directions. 

Taeil hummed and sunk his mouth back under the water again and said, "I’m alive," giggling at his own bubbly, echo-y voice. 

Yuta shot him a tired smile and let his small towel fall to the tiled floor before easing down into the water as casually as possible. Of course, nothing felt casual with Taeil this soon after they’d just basically had some unplanned but really good sex, and the tension in the air felt almost loud, thick and hot like just melted glass. Yuta let his eyes fall closed anyway out of sheer exhaustion, trying to ignore the way Taeil was splashing around like a kid. He seemed to be moving closer too, from how the drops started hitting Yuta in the face with greater frequency. 

"I talked to Taeyong, by the way," Taeil said, getting straight to the point.

Yuta hummed. From the sound of it, Taeil was close, maybe right next to or in front of him. There was an ambivalence about addressing the looming topic, but they couldn’t _not_ , unless they wanted to spend the evening in jittery silence. Which would feel the opposite of relaxing, and if there was one thing Yuta didn’t want to remember this trip by, it was skirting around an opportunity and watching another relationship waste away because he was too goddamn chicken to approach it. 

"He said it’s okay," Taeil continued softly, barely audible over the loud drone of the water filter and the heaters running throughout the room. "Not that it matters," Taeil added quickly, moving to sit beside Yuta, the waves from his motions lapping at Yuta’s collarbones. "He was just glad I told him. I mean, we’re supposed to, you know, but he said it still means a lot to him." 

Yuta snorted gently. "It’s weird how those things work sometimes," he said, opening his eyes and staring at Taeil.

Taeil glanced at him. "Hm?"

"You know, the rules, the things we’re 'supposed' to do— it’s weird when following them actually turns out for the better." 

Taeil sighed. "You know that’s why they’re there, Yuta," he said. "Who would make rules that always turn out bad?"

"God," Yuta said, staring at the ceiling. "God would." He was stressed and frustrated at not being able to sleep it off, and all that turned into bitterness. The longer Yuta stayed like this, the more volatile his mood became, swinging around at the drop of a hat. He _knew_ that. 

Taeil at the very least would understand that it wasn’t directed at him, even if he didn’t always give the most helpful responses. He at least never made it worse, which was more than could be said about most of the members. Not that they didn’t have a good relationship, but when Yuta was frustrated, it was just easier being alone. It didn’t happen all that often, but the easiest way to pass the moment was to work it out at the gym, or sleep it off if possible. Talking about it almost never helped, but when Taeil happened to be here and happened to be so intricately tangled into this whole mess that was Nakamoto Yuta and just, by virtue of being physically available and emotionally present most of the time (more than could be said about the other members), ended up finding out more than either of them probably ever intended— there was nothing left to do other than just talk about it and hope they got somewhere. 

Neither of them knew where they were going, but every interaction brought them somewhere other than where they started, and that was just how things were going to be. Their relationship was intrinsically an adventure, pushing the edges of Yuta’s comfort zone with every step, but that was okay. It had to be okay— there was no other option. He’d already made peace with it, which was as much peace as could be found in something so unpredictable and impulsive.

Taeil _tsk_ ed, sounding loud in the 3AM silence this time. "I don’t think we’re actually all that different," he said.

Yuta rolled his eyes. "Yeah, tell me that when your next heat hits and you’re fucking with Taeyong again." 

It wasn’t like this was the first time Yuta had lashed out about some weird internalized isolation he felt just because he happened to be born not expressly _needing_ to have sex for survival. On the other hand, sex between alphas and omegas also functioned to form familial bonds, so it made sense he’d feel left out. Why was it so hard, then, to validate that? If it were truly an "advantage" to be as self-sufficient as betas notably were, then why did independence feel so miserable?

Taeil was quiet for a while before mumbling, out of the blue, "Have you ever been attracted to Taeyong like that?"

What was frustrating wasn’t that Yuta had hooked up with Taeil, or that Taeil was an omega, or that Yuta regretted what they’d done— no, none of that. It was that having sex with Taeil was the best time he’d had in a while. Ever since Hansol left, probably, though it felt shameful to admit. It was frustrating that that kind of intimacy felt so natural and right, but that Yuta's hormones lacked whatever it took to make that a routine part of his life. Why wasn’t there an excuse to need that intimacy? Why wasn’t there permission? "I’d be lying if I said I never thought about that, yeah," Yuta replied. 

Taeil brightened a bit. "You should tell him," he suggested suddenly, and Yuta choked on his spit a little, sitting right up in the water. "I’m sure he’d be willing to accommodate."

" _Hyung_ ," Yuta said, mostly frustrated but a little endeared that Taeil brought up such a stupid idea. "That’s not— I mean, for you, you _need_ that," he continued, sputtering. "But for me, I— I don’t want to be an accommodation."

"I never said… you know what I mean, Yuta," Taeil said, exasperated, splashing his hands around in the water and turning toward Yuta with a foggy petulance written across his face. "He’d do it for you."

Yuta shook his head. "That’s not what I— I’m saying that I don’t want Taeyong to do something because I asked."

"What’s so wrong with that?" Taeil replied defensively. "That’s what he does for me. That’s what we all do for each other."

"That’s different— we’re _different_ ," said Yuta, turning to face Taeil. "I told you, we’re different. For you, it’s a need. It’s his duty. For me— I’d want Taeyong to fuck me because he _wants_ to, because I’m—"

"What, special?" Taeil interrupted, staring hard at Yuta.

Yuta went quiet, his head spinning a little. Maybe it was the heat, or maybe it was the realization that Taeil wasn’t so stupid after all. 

"Because he’s in love with you? Because you’re the only one for him?" Taeil continued, raising his voice so that it echoed off the walls of the bath chamber, but it was never malicious or spiteful despite the atrocities Yuta had spat at him a few minutes ago. In fact, he was arguably, unequivocally right. 

Taeil was unrelenting in his gaze, but his eyes weren’t completely calm. They quivered a little in the steam like flames on candles. This wasn’t easy for him. He was hurting too, for whatever reason; maybe it was because they’d all entrusted the task of keeping Yuta sane to him in the beginning, and now he was invested. Maybe it was his obligation, as eldest, to make sure everyone was okay. Or, probably, it was because he actually truly cared. 

"You know that’s exactly what happened with Hansol," Taeil said after a moment, quieter this time. He sunk his shoulders under the surface of the water. "I’m not going to beat you up about it," he said. "Yuta, I know we’re different. I’m just saying that you— your needs, they’re just as valid as mine. And you keep denying yourself that." Taeil moved closer and lifted a wet hand to push Yuta’s hair back out of his eyes.

Yuta stared down at Taeil. He looked beautiful, as always, like this: his shoulders bare and sloping gently, his face in a soft smile, his nose sniffing in the steam, the corners of his eyes curling upwards in a pity that felt almost needed.

"When I came to you yesterday, I wasn’t _dying_ , but I had needs. And you went out of your way to satisfy them for me," Taeil went on gently. "Not because you felt obligated to— and I know you would have if I’d asked, too. So why don’t you think that we’d do things for you because we wanted to?"

After a long moment, Yuta pulled himself away and leaned back against the wall of the bath again, craning his neck back to look at the ceiling. "I guess I just don’t get it because I’m not like you," he admitted, and he held his hand up when Taeil started to protest. "Not like before. I know. I’m trying to— god damnit, I’ve been trying to wrap my head around that ever since we all moved in together," Yuta said, frustrated. Not with Taeil, and Taeil knew that. He listened, quieting for Yuta to go on. "I’m just saying I don’t— I don’t know if you get anything out of… helping me," said Yuta. "Not like you do with Taeyong, anyway."

For a while, there was just the sound of the water lapping at the tiled edges of the tub and Taeil’s occasional sniffing. He shifted a bit in the water, too, playing with his fingers and snapping them against the surface of the water. Everyone had been insisting that Yuta was one of them, and that they’re not all that different, and if they liked things that society deemed abnormal, they’d all talk it out provided no one was getting hurt or hurting anyone else. But no alpha had fucked an alpha, and maybe Taeil and Doyoung and Ten were all more flexible in this but no one actually talked it out like they were supposed to, and there was still a squiggly, fuzzy line between the benefits of sharing everything and the empowering independence of having your own relationships and life. And this could be considered hurt in a way, but the stabbing feeling inside at something that didn’t even have anything to do with him— rather, he felt purposely left out— had no right to be masqueraded around as true pain. At least, that was the conclusion Yuta had come to. 

So of course it took him a while to wrap his head around the fact that they weren’t that different. Of course it was a crap shoot, so why was it so frustrating that he still hadn’t come to really _believe_ it inside? What part of him wanted to, and what part of him didn’t? What part of him mapped back to wanting to be alone (special), and what part of him needed, just like everyone else, the warmth and pity of companionship?

Taeil was closer. Yuta had closed his eyes again, but Taeil’s breath fanned against his cheek. Yuta had no idea when Taeil had moved, or even that he could move that quickly while completely undetected, but Taeil was always full of surprises. 

The water sloshed up against Yuta’s shoulders and chest, just barely catching up with him and doing a great job at distracting from the way Taeil was climbing into his lap and looping his arms around Yuta’s shoulders and the fact that they were both very naked. 

When Yuta finally thought to look up at Taeil’s face, there was a bright, cheeky smirk there that felt infectious. "Are you saying you don’t know if it feels good when you fuck me?" Taeil said bluntly, and Yuta balked at how sultry it sounded anyway just by merit of Taeil’s voice being a whiney, filthy mix of honey and desperation. 

Taeil was incredible. Taeil was _impossible_. And none of this could’ve gone down the way it had if it were anyone else. 

Yuta gaped a little, the words dissolving in his mouth as Taeil sunk down slowly into his lap, sitting on his thighs, the skin of his ass supple, warm, and soft. Taeil let out a breathy moan as he leaned up against Yuta’s chest. And Yuta’s hands, shaking, went to Taeil’s waist but ultimately settled on his hips, squeezing and kneading with a neediness he didn’t know he had in him. 

"More," Taeil demanded, half firm half frantic, and Yuta complied, palming Taeil’s hips and rubbing his thumbs in little circles toward the insides of his thighs.

When Taeil finally broke their staredown and threw his head back with a gasp as he rolled his hips against Yuta’s, Yuta caught his breath and his consciousness and moved, leaning in to plant kisses along Taeil’s neck. His skin tasted a bit of chlorine and mostly powdery, sweet with a hint of calmness— a quiet taste that crawled along Yuta’s neck and ran down his back. "Why don’t you show me how good it feels?" Yuta mumbled, nipping right in the junction of Taeil’s neck, and Taeil hummed. 

"Not here, we’ll pass out," he said weakly, letting out a laugh when Yuta drummed his fingers against Taeil’s tailbone. "Shower stalls?"

Yuta swooped in to peck the corner of Taeil’s mouth. "There’s a spare bedroom."

Taeil whined while breaking away from Yuta’s grip and crawling awkwardly out of the bath, his ass and thighs out on full display. "I wanted to ride you," said Taeil coolly while facing away, his voice bouncing off the walls as he fluffed his hair and arched his back as if he knew Yuta was staring.

So Yuta had to take the opportunity to reach up and squeeze Taeil's ass just before he wrapped it up in a towel and kicked Yuta’s hands away. "I want to pin you down," Yuta complained, ambling up himself, and Taeil let out an approving groan.

"Ah, fuck," he said softly, and Yuta nodded for no reason, grabbing Taeil’s shoulders from behind and leaning down to kiss his nape. Taeil hummed in response and murmured, "Why not both?"

Yuta paused for a moment and grinned into it, and Taeil could feel it. He ducked away and turned to give Yuta a sunny smile that was both devilish and pure at the same time. Looking into and really _knowing_ Taeil had a way of making you feel like the most special person in the world. Maybe that was why Johnny loved their little "talks" so much, or why Jaehyun just looked so enamored with everything Taeil did, or why Sicheng let Taeil do whatever he wanted and could never stay mad at him. 

Taeil was like a mirror: he took whatever effort you put into the relationship and reflected it right back at you. He showed you yourself: everything you knew and maybe disliked, but he was relentless about it until you learned to accept and maybe grow to love that part of yourself, too. 

Taeil was more than companionship; he taught you to be a friend both to him and to yourself. 

It was a struggle, but Taeil managed to back Yuta into the changing rooms while they bumped into the walls they shoved each other against, kissing sloppily while chlorinated water dripped down their faces and mixed with tongue and saliva. Taeil seemed to love it though, lapping at Yuta’s lips like he was starved, and Yuta just let him. Knowing that Taeil was like this and not even in heat made watching him rut against Yuta’s thigh and suck on his tongue that much more enticing while Yuta tried to guide them in the general direction of the showers.

As soon as Yuta’s ass hit the stone wall seat, Taeil was in his lap, sliding and rolling his hips around with his asscheeks spread across Yuta’s thigh, and damn if it wasn’t the hottest thing ever. "Please let me ride you," Taeil gasped out, and Yuta moaned, his fingers digging into Taeil’s hips again as a wave of arousal hit him, more powerful than before. Everything smelled hot, the literal _odor_ of heat radiating off of Taeil, and Yuta wanted nothing more than to drown in it. He buried his face in Taeil’s neck and sucked a dark, heavy mark, and Taeil keened, his toes curling against Yuta’s calves as he tensed and clutched Yuta closer to him. 

This wasn’t normal. This wasn’t normal— it must’ve been some omega effect, but it felt so good skirting that line between feeling fully conscious of every sensation and feeling so aroused it got a little out of control. Yuta took harsh, labored breaths right against Taeil’s neck for a while, just resting there, until Taeil finally stopped shuddering and held Yuta’s head gently, tilting it up until their gazes met. "Yuta, Yuta— up here," Taeil said, letting his thumbs run across Yuta’s eyebrows. "Eyes on me."

" _Hyung_ ," Yuta murmured, blinking a little.

"Are you okay?" Taeil said, his voice a little raspy.

"Mhm," Yuta replied. "It’s just— that was really intense. Your pheromones."

"You’re here with me right now, right?" Taeil said, resting their foreheads against each other’s, and Yuta gave as reassuring a smile as he could, hopefully.

That must’ve been just a fraction of what alphas felt when omegas went into heat. "Can you control them?" Yuta breathed, sliding his hands down to Taeil’s ass to play with the thick, warm fluid that dribbled out slowly.

Taeil arched a little while shaking his head and biting his lip, trying to keep himself from letting out noises as Yuta’s fingers danced across his entrance. "No, it’s just… when I’m aroused," he said, seeming embarrassed, and Yuta grinned. "This is the most it’s happened outside of heats," Taeil admitted.

Yuta hummed against Taeil’s neck again, littering his collarbones with soft kisses. It still felt heady but not as overwhelming if he concentrated on the feel of Taeil’s skin and the smell of Taeil himself. This was separate: the pheromones felt like a scent, but instead of traveling through the air, up the nostrils, and hitting olfactory nerves, they seemed to skip the nose entirely and seep straight into your skin and fire up every nerve ending, shocking the brain from a thousand angles at once. It felt almost too unreal to be intoxicating, which was why focusing on what _was_ real— the physical sensations— helped. The feeling wasn’t nauseating, but seemed like it heightened the urgency of Yuta’s hard-on and gave him more energy to deal with that hard-on. Right now.

"Are you okay?" said Taeil. "Do you want to keep going?"

"I’m okay if you are," Yuta replied. He stared at Taeil unrelentingly for a while, who looked back just as hard. 

"I’m fine," Taeil said, flushed prettily. "Never been better."

"It’s different, but I like it," said Yuta, looking down at his hand. "It kinda suits me." 

Taeil hummed. "You’re different for me, too," he reminded Yuta. "Feels good like this," Taeil continued, rocking his hips against Yuta’s, and Yuta groaned when their dicks rubbed against each other and he dropped his forehead against Taeil’s shoulder. "Knowing exactly what I do to you."

Yuta grabbed Taeil’s ass unceremoniously and kneaded it hard, which had Taeil melting in a moment, sinking down into Yuta's lap again and spreading his knees out farther. "Fuck you," Yuta murmured playfully, and Taeil clenched when the tips of Yuta’s fingers slipped just past his rim.

"Get on with it," Taeil demanded, and Yuta slid his finger in slowly, watching Taeil’s reaction the whole while. Surprisingly, the slick was enough; feeling it rush across Yuta's fingers and drip down his hand was incredibly erotic, and Taeil’s eyebrows furrowed as Yuta slid in, his mouth hanging open while he let out these pleased, breathy little noises. 

Yuta soon discovered that he loved fingering Taeil. Taeil was a warm and snug fit; he squeezed Yuta’s fingers but conformed to every curve and bend in his knuckles. It felt like doing a favor for a friend, the way Taeil’s arms would give out even after all his training and he’d collapse onto the bed with his ass still in the air, scrambling to grab a pillow when Yuta pressed deep enough. It wasn’t about strength; Taeil was never concerned about proving how strong he was or how well he could hold it together. He had no concerns about sinking into the pleasure, and he always made Yuta feel so good about it too, keening and panting out, "Yuta, Yuta, Yuta," and making these delirious little whines that went straight to Yuta’s dick and were quite frankly an ego trip.

They still had a lot to learn about what made Taeil feel good. But Taeil _trusted_ him, and that was enough. Because if there was one thing Yuta loved more than fingering Taeil, it was being trusted— being needed. Taeil helped him know that that was part of what made being a beta so discouraging: you weren’t needed. Not conventionally, at least. 

This was different, though. This thing with Taeil: it wasn’t about denying yourself something you needed or relentlessly chasing after what it meant or felt like to be completely overcome by pleasure. That was a pipe dream, and because of Taeil, and because of the things Yuta had learned, and because of some parts maturity and other parts reluctant acceptance, that had come to be okay. This was more like standing on the sea shore on a different planet, watching the waves lap at your feet. The ocean was vast and unpredictable. And the little licks of water; they felt unbelievably warm and welcoming, like the lure of somewhere safe you know you’d been long ago. 

"It isn’t even like that, though," Taeil had said a while ago during one of their midnight talks. "Having sex in heat. Not for me, at least."

This was way back before Yuta even understood anything. He was still naive and full of bitter, willful ignorance at times, but this was back when the only omega in their group who could really tolerate him was Taeil. He’d been close with Ten back in the day, when they were moody and prepubescent and still talked about things like trucks and dinosaurs and anime. Now, it felt like it was just sex, sex, sex— more often than not because that was what interfered the most with their schedules and everyday life. It wasn’t just talking about sex; it was planning for it, brainstorming options, mapping out solutions to hypothetical problems. Yuta usually disengaged, but everyone knew it wasn’t like how Sicheng would distract himself with phone games and occasionally pipe up with a suggestion. None of them really knew how to navigate Yuta’s needs, and that, Taeyong had admitted, had been a mistake on their part. "We should’ve— you— just because you’re a beta doesn’t mean you—"

"Forget it," Yuta replied brusquely. This conversation happened just after Hansol had left, maybe a few days after Taeil had first checked on him. Things were still volatile, and Yuta’s sociability still took place on his own terms. "We were fine. I’m fine."

"No, you’re not," Taeyong insisted. "He fulfilled a need for you, and—"

"He was my friend, too," Yuta snapped, and Taeyong looked away at the force of it, as if Yuta had punched him with words. What felt the worst about Hansol leaving wasn’t that Yuta couldn’t have sex anymore; he could jack off, and it was fine. It was just the presence of someone who understood; even if he didn’t fully understand how it felt, he listened, at least, to the things Yuta described to him. He had an interest in what Yuta _was_ , not what he wasn't. He treated Yuta like a singularity: a presence of his own kind rather than an absence. And just knowing Hansol was there was safety. "It’s not like— don’t treat me like some kind of monster," Yuta bit out.

Taeyong sighed and leaned against the wall with his hands behind his back. He looked tired; why couldn’t he just take care of himself and leave Yuta alone? "I’m not trying to, Yuta," said Taeyong calmly. "It’s just, you’re—"

"Different, I know," Yuta interrupted, and Taeyong drew his mouth into a thin line. They were treating it as if Hansol leaving only affected Yuta, when Hansol was so much more than that. Hansol wasn’t just _Yuta’s_ , and simplifying it into that was infuriating: it was a disservice to Hansol, and also flattened Yuta into some kind of starved succubus rather than a human being dealing with separating from a good friend."It’s either no sex, nothing, blank— or it’s can’t-stop-thinking-about-sex to you guys," Yuta said, exasperated. "To you, there’s no in between. You’ll never understand."

"Then explain to me!" Taeyong replied, raising his voice. He smacked the wall, and Yuta narrowed his eyes. " _Make_ me understand—"

"It’s not like you wanted to before this all happened!" Yuta snapped back, glaring at Taeyong’s hand against the wall. "Why didn’t you ever realize before this, huh? Wh—"

"We’re not perfect, Yuta!" yelled Taeyong. And Yuta knew. And he knew that _Taeyong_ knew that this was a copout. Maybe if they’d made an effort back then, things wouldn’t be the way they were now. The burden of Yuta fell on Hansol and Hansol alone, and how could Hansol help falling in love with someone whose secrets had piled onto his shoulders like snow on a flat roof? How could Hansol resist falling for the importance of that burden? "We’re trying our best," Taeyong said, and Yuta saw red. "I’m _sorry_. What do you want me to say?!"

"Nothing," said Yuta lowly, swinging open the door and making a space for Taeyong to leave. 

Taeyong slumped slightly. No, he wasn’t perfect. Sometimes the others made him out to be. Yuta always liked him better imperfect anyway, but the slow path to perfect that Taeyong took it upon himself to pursue pissed Yuta off to no end. It was a mix of self-blame and arrogance, and Taeyong didn’t know how to reconcile that: the self-blame of feeling obligated to be perfect, and the arrogance of holding himself to that standard. It was infuriatingly pitiful. 

"Don’t say anything," Yuta continued, his eyes digging into Taeyong’s back as he left. "This isn’t helpful."

So Taeil had been the sacrificial lamb again that night, slinking into Yuta’s room quietly and sitting on the edge of his bed. Sulking dramatically always took the wind out of Yuta, and he didn’t have the energy or the motivation to be mad at Taeil at this point— not that he ever did. "How are you feeling?" Taeil had said awkwardly, like someone who had never said those words in that particular order before. It was so obviously a Taeyong-generated opener, but saying it probably made Taeil feel better and more confident about himself in trying to console Yuta, so it was fine.

Yuta stretched. "Still kinda mad," he mumbled into the blanket, facing away from Taeil and the door. "Kinda horny."

Taeil laughed at that, and Yuta couldn’t help but crack a smile to himself. "Sorry," Taeil said. It was so nonsensical that Yuta had to snort a little. He rolled on his back and looked up at Taeil, who was blocking the bright, fluorescent light beating down from the ceiling. "Do you need to, um, take care of that?" Taeil said, and Yuta shrugged.

"It’ll go away," he said. 

"Ah," said Taeil. 

There was a silence between them for a while, until Yuta said, "That doesn’t happen for you, huh?"

Taeil shook his head and clenched a part of the blankets into his hand. He was just so honest and guileless that talking with him was refreshing. It was an exercise in taking someone in point blank and focusing on the present instead of wasting energy on reading between the lines. Yuta instead watched Taeil’s hand motions and body language, and everything tying together like that felt satisfying: when Taeil was angry, he clenched his hands and his face drained of color. When he was nervous, his eyes widened and his shoulders went square. Maybe the inherent predictability in that was why talking to Taeil was so calming. "It just gets worse, I guess?" said Taeil, squinting as if trying to remember.

Yuta nodded. "I’ve seen." 

Ten was usually pretty private about his heats, while Doyoung, who— despite tending toward stillness and silence— usually showed up for practice uncomplainingly every day and worked up a huff of a sweat and asked Taeyong for training into late nights, became dramatic to the point where he wouldn’t leave his bed to do basic things like eating and drinking water. So someone always had to nurse him during the heats that he dragged out for days on end, and Yuta had been assigned that duty a few times in the past. It was irritating, but he did sort of feel a rush of pity seeing Doyoung in that state, mixed with a dull urge to make out with him. Nothing more than that, though. "Must suck," Yuta muttered.

Taeil laughed lightly. "Kinda does, but the sex is nice," he added. 

Taeil always put it as it was. There was no real intention to ever mislead or manipulate anyone. He could be blunt at times, too, but Yuta kind of appreciated that. For how finicky Yuta could be about the way people perceived him, after the initial blow, honesty always felt better in the end. "Must be nice, feeling that good."

"It isn’t even like that, though," Taeil said then. 

"Hm?" Yuta replied, nudging Taeil with his elbow. Yuta didn’t want to talk that evening. There was nothing, really, to say; not yet, at least. Hansol was gone, and there were no words to the feelings that Hansol abated for him. _He_ hadn’t even understood yet at that point why Hansol had been such a presence for him, so talking it out wouldn’t have helped at all. Maybe someday, years later, he could tell Taeyong exactly what had gone wrong— exactly what Taeyong had failed to tend to and pick up on in Yuta specifically when he’d kept himself busy perfecting his craft at relentlessly raising a whole family, but that day was not today. Yuta hadn't even known what his needs were yet, and life had a dull kind of stuffy but empty luster. 

So he could listen to Taeil talk, whatever nonsense he decided to spew. His presence was at least neutral to comforting. He satisfied himself at wherever point he stood, and right then, that was all Yuta needed.

"It’s like… if you take care of it right away, it just feels normal," Taeil said. "Like… sleeping," he continued.

Taeil was never good with words. Sex… was like sleeping? Yuta parsed what he said a bit. "Like sleeping?" he said, and Taeil shifted around.

"You have to… suffer a lot for it to be like— black out kinda good," Taeil explained. "Like wait it out."

That must’ve been why Doyoung always needed a fucking handmaiden to get through his three-day marathon heats while Taeil just fucked around with Taeyong right away and it was over. Yuta smiled a little to himself; that was just like Doyoung: if he had to suffer through this bullshit for his whole life, he might as well make it good. 

"You know when you finally get into bed?" said Taeil after a while, and Yuta nodded.

"Like satisfying a need," Yuta replied.

"Yeah, I don’t like waiting for it, you know?" Taeil said, making a face. "The mood swings, the hot flashes, the nausea. Not worth it."

Yuta hummed. "We don’t get that," he said toward the ceiling.

"I know," Taeil said without any malice or irony. He smiled. 

"I guess that’s one thing," Yuta said, and Taeil nodded. 

Sex was just _good_. Sure, it was exhausting and sweaty and sometimes it made you feel embarrassed and vulnerable as hell. Hasty preparation could make it painful, but it wasn’t a physiological life or death situation— not for betas, at least. And the beauty of making Taeil feel good outside of heat was that there was literally no other point to it than that: Taeil wanted it just because it felt good. 

They really weren’t that different. And there was something more to life than being needed: it was being _wanted_.

Need meant obligation. Like Taeyong being happy to accommodate, which was okay and valid but not something Yuta was ready to settle for yet; not like the others at least. Maybe someday, but not yet. Hansol was want, but it would’ve become need. Hansol was more mature; Hansol knew to stop things before that, and he inadvertently taught Yuta something, too. It hurt— god, it hurt like hell. 

"Is it good?" Yuta mumbled against Taeil’s mouth, and Taeil nodded frantically, speechless, breaking their kiss to moan out loud when Yuta pushed his fingers deep into him. His voice echoed out across the shower stalls and into the silence, and it was impossible for someone not to have heard them, but Yuta couldn’t be assed to care. 

"I want—" Taeil gasped out, and Yuta groaned at the sound of his voice. He sounded beautifully wrecked, and Yuta wanted him to remember how it felt, the feeling of nothing but raw, feral pleasure. 

To show Taeil how it felt to fuck in a way where it was just _fun_ suddenly felt a lot more appealing than being an omega or an alpha or whatever the hell. It was partly physical; finding out just how attractive Taeil was fueled it, and it was partly emotional acceptance of the lessons life had been trying to hammer into his hard head all this time. "Mm?" Yuta hummed, thrusting shallowly into Taeil and feeling him shift and squirm in response in his lap. "What do you want?"

"I— I want your cock," Taeil whined, and Yuta hissed as Taeil grabbed it with small hands and started stroking it carefully and reverently, like it was a fucking treasure. 

Yuta dropped his head against Taeil’s shoulder; Taeil’s tight, warm heat around his fingers was almost blindingly good, and feeling it around his dick would feel a million times better. He definitely wouldn’t last. 

"Can I?" Taeil asked graciously, so polite it felt almost wrong; he looked at Yuta with these round, glittering and lidded eyes, cloudy and dilated with intensity. Yuta growled in response and pulled his fingers out of Taeil’s ass and squeezed his hips hard, lifting him desperately.

"God, yes," he rasped, and Taeil moaned, satisfied, shifting onto his knees and rolling his cock against Yuta’s abdomen a few times, chasing the friction. The way precome dripped from his pretty cock was mesmerizing; he was so wet, _everywhere_ , and it made everything glisten in a kind of filthy but kind of beautiful way. Yuta, in his impatience, pulled Taeil down until his cock shoved up between Taeil’s ass cheeks, and they both moaned loudly as Yuta’s tip caught against Taeil’s rim. 

Taeil rocked on his thighs, proving the returns of all those dance practices, and Yuta watched, entranced, as he rode the tip of Yuta's cock almost gracefully, locking the tip between his clenching rim, and it was so impossibly hot and tight as if he were trying to milk Yuta’s orgasm from him without even needing to suck him fully in. 

Taeil wanted it deeper; Taeil always liked it deeper, and he whimpered pathetically to indicate so, his legs shaking and his movements getting more desperate, too tense to sink down properly. 

"Relax," Yuta whispered, shushing Taeil and holding his ass until Taeil collapsed slowly into his hands and Yuta slowly lowered his weight down, the slide becoming easier as Taeil’s muscles loosened. 

Taeil was so hot inside. The way his walls squeezed and fluttered around Yuta in pleasure made Yuta squirm and buck his hips up beside himself until Taeil was taking him all the way to the hilt in one smooth motion. The movement made Yuta’s cock brush past Taeil’s prostate, and Taeil screamed brokenly, his legs trembling. Yuta squeezed Taeil’s ass and groped the skin there harshly as Taeil dropped his body down and took him even deeper. 

They paused there for a moment, catching their breath. The way Taeil clenched and squirmed around Yuta as he adjusted made blood rush to Yuta’s cock and arousal stir in the pit of his stomach. Yuta started moving, and Taeil, still trembling and sensitive, must’ve liked it because he gripped Yuta’s forearms harder and panted with each thrust. 

"I’m close," Taeil whispered, and the air rushing past Yuta’s ear made him buck up into Taeil again, harder this time. Yuta moaned and grabbed Taeil’s cock bouncing between them and ran his thumb across the tip making Taeil sob into Yuta’s shoulder. "Please, yes," Taeil gasped, and Yuta squeezed and jerked him off roughly, mouthing at Taeil’s lips until they were panting and drooling into each others’ mouths. 

"Ah, fuck," Yuta groaned when Taeil started riding him more frantically, clenching around him at every thrust and whimpering until his back pulled taut and he came with a broken shout, gasping as Yuta fucked him through it and started leaking around the slick that was already seeping out of Taeil. And as Taeil kept riding Yuta weakly and in earnest, Yuta buried himself to the hilt and Taeil knew, clenching around him with a soft, satisfied moan that sent Yuta over the edge. He pushed in deeper and gripped Taeil’s hips so hard they bruised, thrusting shallow and in jerky motions pushing his come into Taeil while Taeil’s slick dripped out in filthy spurts. 

They stalled there for a while, breathing heavily in uneven gasps, and Taeil laughed a little, tickled, when Yuta’s breath rushed past his cheeks and throat. 

Yuta huffed, playing absently with the come that was already drying around Taeil’s rim. That was unbelievably good. Different than being fucked— not better or worse, but different. Taeil’s omega pheromones definitely enhanced it; fucking Hansol wouldn’t have been nearly this intense. It felt different than being full, and the hint of possessiveness that cropped up when Yuta glanced at the purpling bruises from yesterday was uniquely for Taeil and all in good fun. Yuta's dick twitched at a fleeting thought of licking it out of Taeil with Taeil’s shoulders and chest pressed against the mattress and his ass in the air. 

Taeil snorted. "What are you thinking about?" he murmured with a happy sigh when Yuta stretched him in response, fingering lazily around his dick inside Taeil while Taeil was still relaxed and supple. 

Yuta reached behind him and twisted on the shower knob, drawing an unceremonious screech out of both of them when the water blasted cold onto their naked backs. "Eating you out," he yelled over the running water, and Taeil moaned appreciatively, sliding off Yuta’s softening dick and holding his shoulder for support as his knees shook. 

Washing Taeil’s hair felt oddly familial between rounds of filthy sex. Taeil had a fluffy head of hair that felt soft and mushy when doused in conditioner and floral smells, and Yuta took no time in burying his fingers in it and massaging Taeil’s scalp, soaking in the vibrations of Taeil’s happy humming. 

Taeil squirmed a lot and kicked Yuta in the hip when trying to wash the backs of his knees and kept shaking his head and letting water splash all over the stall and in Yuta’s eyes. They were really something incredible. The burn of Taeil’s skin felt both searing and comforting, like a heater, and Yuta wanted to hold on and never let go. Taeil had always been something like a stuffed animal, but it felt even more irresistible the past few days or so and no one else seemed to notice it. 

The idea of cuddling came up. It had always bounced around in the recesses of Yuta’s mind, but it wavered between appealing and utterly appalling. Some of that had to be Yuta’s long running revulsion at sharing even more of himself with someone, but after the urge passed, it usually settled for another few months. 

Taeil, though, incited cuddling. Yuta wanted to pet his tummy. He wanted to tangle their legs together and bury his face in Taeil’s hair and breathe in endlessly. He wanted to massage Taeil’s shoulders and lace their fingers together and press little kisses into his shoulder blades and down his spine until Taeil shivered. Even the small giggles Taeil let out when Yuta tickled him with his breath made the urge to touch him— gently, lovingly, and incessantly— almost painful.

"What are you thinking about?" Taeil repeated with a smile as he dumped a fluffy towel on top of Yuta’s head, and Yuta rubbed at his hair and shook it out roughly. 

"Nothing," Yuta replied, and Taeil pouted and shoved him lightly, crowding him against the other side of the stall and latching onto his lips.

They fucked again that night, wrapped up in rough linen spa robes and rolling around underneath the covers like in a 19th century romance thriller. Yuta got to pin Taeil down like he wanted, grip gentle but firm, and it was just as perfect as he’d imagined: Taeil stared up at him with lidded and wild eyes, hands limp and legs wrapping around Yuta to pull him closer. When Yuta reached down and ghosted his fingers over Taeil’s thighs and hovered them over his entrance, Taeil shuddered and squirted a little in anticipation, filling the whole room with the heady odor of sex and tension. 

Yuta paused and breathed in shakily. The scent was also an experience, literally feeling Taeil’s desperation seeping out from the pores of his skin. Yuta didn’t dare look as he slid a finger in Taeil again; he pressed his cheek against Taeil’s and focused on the feeling of Taeil sucking him in eagerly enough to basically be fucking himself, wet and warm and soft inside, his walls moving tiredly, calmly around Yuta again. 

He finger fucked Taeil slow and rhythmic this time, unrelenting even when Taeil squirmed and whimpered from oversensitivity only to sigh and rock himself on Yuta’s fingers when Yuta scissored them slowly and stretched Taeil out. 

"Feels good," Taeil murmured, pulling his own legs toward his chest and hugging them there so Yuta could rut against his ass and thighs. "I’m ready, I’m ready," Taeil said, reaching around blindly for Yuta’s dick and making Yuta gasp as he brushed his hand against it and squeezed and pulled at it clumsily while overcome by the feeling of Yuta’s fingers stroking his walls. They seemed to conform to Yuta already like he belonged there, making it easy to slide his dick back into the familiar heat, sighing at how it felt almost comfortable at this point. 

The way they fitted together and how Taeil’s legs came to wrap around Yuta automatically felt _pleasant_ this time. Taeil wrapped around him like a blanket and his skin slid against Yuta’s dick and welcomed him in. They fucked slow and almost romantic, Yuta drawing it out with shallow thrusts deep inside Taeil while Taeil kicked at his back weakly for him to go faster and curled his toes every time Yuta pressed against his prostate, moaning loud and long against Yuta’s mouth. 

Yuta came first this time, pulling out to stroke himself hard and fast against Taeil’s rim, and his orgasm hit him hot and weak but still intense, wracking through his body until he doubled over and his come dribbled out across Taeil’s ass. Taeil was moaning the whole time, high pitched and needy, and he reached down to touch himself while Yuta gathered him up and bit marks into his chest and collarbones. It felt dry and spent, but somehow Yuta kept coming, head swirling around the feeling of Taeil arching against him and fucking into his hand.

And while Yuta’s panting finally slowed, Taeil squirmed in protest, holding his legs back with a surprising amount of self control and strength and keeping himself delicately on edge. Yuta stared hotly down at him and held his gaze as he stroked Taeil’s ass cheeks, gathering the stripes of come and pushing them inside Taeil rather forcefully until Taeil’s orgasm quivered out of him, more slick than come but racking Taeil’s body with shudders. 

Taeil’s voice was twice as beautiful when it broke. He clutched the backs of Yuta’s shoulders and the pads of his fingers slid down his sweaty skin, and they came down together, rocking against each other just because it felt right. 

Yuta only slowed because he felt tired, and after a moment he collapsed weakly to Taeil’s side, rolling onto his back for a few breaths before turning toward Taeil whose eyes were fluttering shut. "Should we even sleep at this point?" Yuta breathed, and Taeil snorted out a tired laugh. The sounds of morning came back into focus around them, slowly pushing past the ringing in Yuta’s ears from sheer exhaustion. This side of the onsen was hemmed by dense forest, and crickets crowded the evenings while cicadas screeched in flocks during the daytime. 

"We have an hour before we have to be up," Taeil replied, his chest heaving steadily like a metronome. Yuta placed a hand on it, then decided to wrap around him and pull him close, despite Taeil squirming and grunting at the chafing against his back. The scraggly towel-robes tangled them together like a nest. 

"Do you feel like telling them?" Yuta said, and Taeil made a noise. "The other option is just lying here and letting them figure it out."

"That one," Taeil said, swinging his arm around on Yuta’s bare side for emphasis. They could sleep on the plane. Which admittedly sounded unsatisfying, but there was really no other choice. If Yuta slept now, it would just be harder to get up later.

"Are we gonna talk?" Yuta said after a moment, and Taeil rolled on his side with a dramatic huff, blinking his eyes open at Yuta.

"How are you still so energetic?"

"I’m trying to keep myself awake, brat," Yuta muttered, and Taeil shoved him lightly and tweaked his nipples with his thumbs.

Yuta yelped softly and then laughed when Taeil muttered, "Who’s the brat here?" in a groggy, defeated voice. "Hold me," he demanded, and Yuta made a pleasantly surprised noise. The warmth of Taeil’s skin stirred that little urge inside Yuta again to just wrap themselves in a mess of blankets and bury his face in Taeil’s hair and neck and leave kisses across his cheeks and nose.

The difference between pity and legitimate concern was a loose one. Yuta acted pitiful at times because he was either too arrogant or too self deprecating to ask for attention. Maybe a mix of both. Funny how that kind of stuff worked. Yuta wrapped his arms around Taeil gingerly and stared at the back of Taeil’s neck, counting the freckles there. 

Taeil just wanted Yuta to love himself. And having sex with Taeil did feel healing in a ridiculous kind of way, but it made sense the more you thought about it. It was like being assigned a responsibility and doing a good job at it, and being a little more confident for next time. 

Trust, like want, was voluntary. Taeil let Yuta fuck him because he wanted him to, despite having had some stellar sex not two weeks earlier. It was kind of ironic that Yuta hadn’t thought that being so noncommittally wanted by someone might totally outshine perpetuating a need for sex every few weeks or so, but if he had thought of it, none of this would’ve happened. And the past few weeks had been stupidly difficult, like turning in a traffic circle and missing your exit like three times in a row. But that was the only way life lessons really stuck with you: when unnecessary misunderstandings made people irritable, and the issues kept coming up despite your every effort to run away them, and minute, almost insignificant interactions dragged problems out over the course of several months only to culminate in a bitter, needlessly dramatic climax. And the fact that it could’ve all been avoided seemed only to cement the lesson into the mold. Then again, Yuta wouldn’t be who he was if a little pain in the ass wasn’t worth it in the end. 

Taeyong burst through the doors not 20 minutes later and immediately yelled, "They’re here!"

Doyoung groaned from down the hall, probably still lying in bed after having verbally blackmailed Taeyong into checking on them. "Of course they are." 

Taeyong knelt down next to them and hissed, "Did you sleep _at all_?!" and Yuta buried his face blearily in Taeil’s naked shoulder and shrugged. Taeyong laughed despite himself and ruffled Yuta’s hair. "You look like a hot mess."

He wasn’t wrong. The sex was hot, and now they were a mess. "You sure you’re okay with this?" Yuta mumbled despite himself. It just sort of slipped out the minute he opened his mouth to tell Taeyong to shut up or go away, and Taeyong sighed and sat down cross-legged by Taeil’s head. 

"We wouldn’t have gotten as far as we have if we weren’t," Taeyong said quietly. The way Taeyong always referred to the group as the royal 'We,' was, again, arrogantly pitiful. Then again, Yuta wasn’t much different in that aspect. It just came out differently: Taeyong pretended to be the perfect, selfless, immaculate martyr no one on earth had the real capability to be, and Yuta wavered feverishly between codependence and pushing people far, far away where not even his neediness and the long tendrils of regret could reach them. 

"I’m not saying 'we', I’m saying _you_ ," Yuta said, unclasping his arm from around Taeil’s waist, but Taeyong jolted forward and pushed it back so that Yuta was holding Taeil firmly again.

"He’ll wake up," Taeyong said and grinned when Yuta furrowed his eyebrows at him. "Taeil sleeps like a rock most of the time, but he wakes up if you stop cuddling him."

Yuta rolled his eyes, and Taeyong snorted. "Great, another high maintenance _hyung_ ," Yuta said. Maybe he wouldn’t get a straight answer from Taeyong. Most likely because Taeyong didn’t know himself, but he was great at masking that, and it wasn’t Yuta’s responsibility to tear that mask forcefully away. Taeyong had gotten this far with as self-destructive as he could be sometimes, and he’d keep going. If he needed Yuta, he would ask. And if he didn’t, that was okay, too. 

Taeyong shoved his shoulder. "Hey, we make things work," Taeyong said after a while, playing with the fraying edge of the blanket. "If that means not letting Johnny touch Taeil, then so be it."

"If it means kicking Hansol out, then so be it?" Yuta said bitterly, but his voice came out softer than intended. 

Taeyong paused. Again, it just sort of slipped out. These must’ve been things buried deep in Yuta’s subconscious that Taeil somehow dug out of him, burrowing through all the layers of Yuta with nothing but the conditional weapons of trust and affection. And Yuta, in his vulnerable state, let him in. The sound of Taeil’s breathing almost lulled Yuta to sleep in the interim, until Taeyong finally murmured, "I’m… sorry."

Yuta breathed in Taeil’s scent. He wasn’t even awake, and it was still comforting: not alluring and sluggish like his pheromones, but just the powdery, soft scent Taeil exuded every day. A little musk emanated from the sweaty patch of hair matted to his neck. It wasn’t that Yuta blamed Taeyong for all of it. The feeling Taeyong incited in him was some kind of anger, but it wasn’t blame. "… Me too," Yuta decided to reply. 

Taeyong huffed and mussed with his own hair, shaking his fringe back and forth in frustration. "You… really shouldn’t be apologizing— it’s not your fault," he said, and Yuta shrugged again.

"It’s not yours, either."

Taeil’s arms folded over the blanket were bare, and the small, thin hairs on his forearms tucked over each other gently. Taeyong ran his fingers over Taeil’s skin, and Yuta looked on. It looked right; they looked right, but it didn’t make Yuta angry. Either Yuta and Taeil were right too, or it wasn’t bad being wrong. Whatever it was, Taeil became the person Yuta suddenly wouldn’t let go of. Whatever it was, whether it was Taeil, or NCT, or the _feeling_ of belonging to something larger than himself Yuta wasn’t letting it go to some petty insecurities; this felt too good for that.

"So you shouldn’t apologize, either," Yuta continued with a pout to himself. 

"Okay," Taeyong said.

"Okay," said Yuta.

They’d make it work. So Hansol’s solution was to run away. Yuta couldn’t bring himself to be angry at Hansol because he was already suffering. No use being mad at himself, either, not with Taeil in his arms and a short plane ride home and the rest of the day off. He’d probably run to the gym and get back on his workout schedule. Doyoung would heckle him while lying on the couch with his phone. Ten might smell the sex on him and interrogate Taeil about it only to get weird non-answers in response, like how it felt like, "happy, like soap?"

Life went on. That was the only thing that made this possible.

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, I had to get this out of my system. It somehow turned out way longer than I anticipated. Thank you for supporting me and leaving kudos and comments! I appreciate every one of you so much.


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